The backlog of cargo ships at the busiest port complex in the US – images of which have come to define the global supply chain crisis – is unlikely to return to normal before next summer.
The executive director of the Port of Long Beach in California says plans to switch to 24/7 operations, pushed by President Joe Biden this week, will improve the crisis in the short term but that logistics globally need a rethink.
Long Beach and the neighbouring port of Los Angeles are the two busiest in the US – and for weeks now, container ships, often as many as 70 at a time, have been forced to wait at anchor offshore for a berth.
The post-pandemic surge of trade combined with labour shortages has created bottlenecks at key logistics hubs around the world and raised concerns about more product shortages.
Mario Cordero, who met Mr Biden this week as the White House pushed for ways to unclog the backlog, told Sky News: “Everybody agrees we’re in a crisis, everybody agrees we need a solution, so the question is what are the short-term solutions, what are the long-term solutions?
“What’s important is that we cannot be in this situation next time there’s an unforeseeable event.”
Not surprisingly, many of the issues facing the supply chain industry in the US are the same as those being seen in the UK and Europe. There is a shortage of truck drivers and delays caused by the logjam are costly.
At a truck stop close to the Port of Long Beach, one trucker said: “Sometimes some drivers get mad, I understand that because I am one of them. We try to do our job the best we can but we’re wasting too much time inside, like five or six hours waiting for one load.”
Truck drivers are having to wait double the amount of time than unusual to pick up one load at the Port of…
Source : skynews
