Data suggests that round-the-clock port operations aren’t working because truckers aren’t showing up to collect cargo

President Joe Biden ordered California ports to stay open all night to ease supply chain jams — but data shows that truckers aren’t showing up to collect the cargo, Mary Hanbury reported for Business Insider.

Around half of Maersk’s 2,000 available appointments for truckers at its giant terminal on the Port of Long Beach went unused one Friday, The Washington Post reported.

Experts say truckers aren’t showing up because they either don’t have the chassis available to hold the cargo or because warehouses are full. And the industry is still grappling with a record shortage of drivers.

The ports of LA and Long Beach have remained clogged for months because of the global supply chain crisis. Now, some say Biden’s all-hours schedule won’t resolve the supply chain jams on its own because it doesn’t address the entire supply chain.

“This level of operations is not an overnight, simple solution to implement – and does not solve the broader supply chain capacity challenges and shortage of workers in trucking, warehouse, and supply chain jobs,” Narin Phol, regional managing director of Maersk North America, said at an industry conference in South Carolina on Monday, The Post reported.

The US is also currently short of 80,000 truck drivers, which means there aren’t always enough people to collect the cargo that’s clogging the docks.

The California ports have announced that they will impose new fines on containers that are left on the docks for several days.

“Key issues such as chassis availability and empty container returns still need to be addressed,” the National Retail Federation said, according to The Post. “We encourage ocean carriers to continue to work with importers and truckers to move cargo as quickly as possible and not just pass along the cost of the fee, which will further exacerbate the problems.”

Story courtesy of Business Insider