THE Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have suffered work slowdowns due to labour shortages during the holidays, reports IHS Media.
"I expect the next two weeks are not going to be pretty," said SSA Terminals president Ed DeNike.
Previously, bottlenecks at the hundreds of distribution warehouses in Southern California were the cause of supply chain congestion, while vessel bunching is the trouble now.
"I don't see the bottleneck being the warehouses. The holiday merchandise is gone, over-the-road truck capacity to the US interior is much improved, and intermodal rail capacity is not as constrained as it was several weeks ago," said a logistics provider.
The ports continue to be overwhelmed by 26 scheduled weekly liner services from Asia and several extra-loader vessels. There will also be 31 calls in December, while additional extra-loader ships are expected to be announced in January.
Tioga Group consulting firm principal Dan Smith declared that with holiday merchandise having already been delivered to stores and consumers' homes, retailers are in a frenzy to restock their inventories for spring 2021.
"We're seeing a complete restocking of inventory. There's way too much product moving through this gateway right now," said Mr Smith.
Yusen Terminals CEO Alan McCorkle stated the next few weeks will be difficult for the company as they'll have fewer longshoremen available to dispatch from the hiring halls.
"We're full. When you get into the holidays, folks want to take time off," said Mr McCorkle.
Meanwhile, the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach handled 800,000 TEU of US imports from Asia every month from July through November, as laden volumes from Asia jumped 20 per cent during the period.
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