Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 176; Flight Crew Type 721
Time Pressure; Workload; Situational Awareness; Distraction; Communication Breakdown
ATC Issue All Types; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Flight Crew Requested ATC Assistance / Clarification
Human Factors; Staffing; Environment - Non Weather Related; Weather
Throughout the last several weeks at least; communication with ATC has been difficult on many occasions throughout the day due to ATC saturation.  More than usual; Controllers are working multiple sectors; combining multiple frequencies; and overall being task-saturated far more often than I am used to.  It is my perception that ATC staffing was adjusted several months ago to match decreased traffic counts associated with the COVID downturn; and now that traffic counts have largely rebounded; ATC staffing has not increased anywhere nearly as quickly.  A great example was on this flight leg; inbound to ZZZ - as far as we could tell; one Controller was working all ZZZ of Approach/Departure; leading to his absolute saturation trying to handle IFR inbounds/outbounds to/from ZZZ and several satellite airports; and being compounded significantly by a handful of VFR aircraft operating in the area.  We tried for quite some time to request a heading deviation for towering cumulus buildups in the vicinity of the STAR course; and were glad to finally get a word in before we would have needed to choose to either accept worse turbulence than we needed to or deviate from a clearance.  There is no doubt that the ATC saturation was at a level which compromised Safety several times over the last few days of flying.
Air carrier First Officer reported difficulty receiving a revised clearance for weather deviation because ATC was saturated with traffic.