Its not just the UK and EU who are dealing with shortages caused by trucking and shipping deficiencies; the US is going through the same pains and it is particularly evident in the combined ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which directly abut each other; Long Beach is the older of the two harbors, a natural harbor, while the massive LA Port is a man-made facility built on landfills and reclaimed ocean floor; the combined ports are the largest in the US and the 9th largest in the world; a very substantial percentage of the goods imported into the US or exported out pass through the ports and their impact on the US economy is massive...
At the moment, the waters directly off the ports looks like an invasion fleet has massed offshore:
Backup in port of Los Angeles affecting truck drivers ability to work; cargo delivery --
https://ktul.com/news/local/backup-i...cargo-delivery
The report notes that nearly 70 container ships are anchored offshore, waiting for open berths (a local report last night stated the number at 66 ships); keep in mind, that is just container ships; there are some 25+ other ships (tankers, etc.) also waiting for berths, so the total is nearer to 90 ships idling offshore...
In the report, you see the truckers blaming the Ports and the longshoremen ("they get paid by the hour, we don't")and the Posts management blaming the Feds; sad to say, the various factions are trying to milk the situation for their own agendas: the unions to wrangle higher pay and loosened working quotas and perks; the trucker for, also, higher wages and perks; and, the Ports management for a larger slice of the Fed funds; all of this is not at all helping the situation...
Even if the Ports were to be able to process out the cargo in a timely manner, there are other problems; merchants who are receiving the containers often have a lag time between when the containers land, are processed, are ready for pickup, and the actual time the do, indeed have the containers hauled; sometimes this is due to the merchants not having sufficient available storage space on their own properties to take the containers, so the containers are stored at the Ports, and the usual outside port storage time is about 30 days; however, that storage time is now averaging over 60 days, and. in a rising number of cases, is approaching 90 days on average; decreased sales at brick and mortar retail sites and increased mail-order sales have caused inventory backups on many items taking up valuable storage space; with no space in their own warehouses, they are letting the containers sit at the Ports; also, they are equally dealing with a shortage of drivers for their trucks, so even if they had the warehouse space, they are in heavy competition to find drivers to move the products...
Since the beginning of the Pandemic, a lot of workers have rethought their career priorities and have shifted away from jobs they once thought they were only suited for; in addition to a large number of older drivers who opted to retire during the Pandemic, a large number of drivers have found employ in other field, often with better pay and conditions, and coaxing them back into driving again will be difficult; new drivers are equally hard to find since younger workers, often armed with college degrees, are not going to be flocking to jobs that are comparatively far more arduous than careers for which they are more qualified...
Then there's this to consider: despite what the Far-Right has claimed , that the woes are caused by the unwillingness of workers to seek employment because of unemployment subsidies, the figure coming out of states that ceased those subsides show the cutoffs have had little to no effect on turning around the inability of employers to find workers; why? well, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, there are some 8.4 million unemployed workers in the US, and the BoLS also reports there are some 10.6 job opening; it doesn't take a great deal of maths skills to see, if you have some 2.2 million more openings than you have workers, even if all the unemployed were working, the country would still be in a hole, jobs-wise...
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