Supply chain constraints have gotten so bad that even throwing more people at the problems wouldn’t make them go away immediately. A new snapshot of port activity in California is the latest indication.
Driving the news: The number of workers in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach is down roughly 30% from pre-COVID levels, according to RBC Capital Markets data shared with Axios. RBC approximates foot traffic based on anonymized cellphone location data from geospatial intelligence company Orbital Insight.
- “That’s your labor shortage quantified,” says Michael Tran, managing director of digital intelligence strategy at RBC Capital Markets.
Why it matters: Companies are eager to find signs of relief in the supply chain in order to adjust inventory and prices effectively. The data shows how far activity has dropped from pre-pandemic levels and how hard it's been to stabilize this year.
State of play: Among the 22 biggest ports in the world, LA and Long Beach this year have experienced the longest turnaround times (how long it takes a ship to move through port), according to RBC's data.
- The gap between the most efficient port, Port Klang in Malaysia, and LA and Long Beach, is 4.8 days.
- Across all global ports, the current turnaround time is almost an entire day (+350%) longer than normal levels in 2019.
The big picture: The economy cannot add jobs fast enough to counterbalance the current record demand for goods....
- The backlog is so immense that even with more workers added, you would need everyone to work harder and longer to get through