Continued chaos! The crisis may last until 2023...

Aaron Terrazas of Digital Freight Network said congestion at the port has stabilized in recent weeks, but has not necessarily improved. Freight volumes have not improved significantly, with the number of boxes unloaded from ships, trucks and warehouses remaining roughly the same. But the number of ships at anchor has decreased, largely because fewer ships are coming into the port.

Lunar New Year and early February will be a real litmus test to see if the ports can build up cargo during the seasonal lull in January and early February and what the rest of 2022 will look like.

“Then I would be more optimistic that some of the delays could be eliminated in 2022. In contrast, if we don’t see progress between now and mid-February, I think it will extend into 2023.”

Ports have become one of many bottlenecks in the global supply chain as ships are loaded with boxes of everything from electronics to Christmas decorations. The backlog of inventory has left some stores with empty shelves during the busy holiday shopping season. The crisis at U.S. ports includes nearly 160 backed-up ships in the Los Angeles area alone.

It is predicted that once the congestion at the ports is resolved, the congestion will shift to the domestic transportation system.

The bottleneck has shifted. Now that people are starting to see some hope that the ports will be less congested, then the bottleneck may become the domestic transportation system in the United States , which is currently becoming more congested because of these returns.

The port crisis may have eased as January approaches, but the omicron variant of the coronavirus has once again raised concerns about more economic disruption in the weeks and months ahead.

There are serious concerns at this time about warehouse and distribution center operations and the staffing risks that these facilities face if this situation continues.

Aaron Terrazas said the pandemic and subsequent supply chain crisis have raised awareness of the extent to which the U.S. economy has been overly dependent on a few trade lanes and trading partners over the past 20 years.