Ports Backlog Persists Despite Biden Promise Of Longer Hours

The logjam at America’s two largest ports has shown no sign of improving, despite President Biden’s announcement earlier this month that both facilities were moving to a 24/7 work schedule.

The Marine Exchange of Southern California reported Tuesday that 105 vessels were at anchor or in a holding area waiting to enter the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which account for about one-third of all US imports. That’s down slightly from the 107 ships who were reported to be waiting for a berth Monday, but way up from the 96 in the same situation on Tuesday of last week.

Of those 105 vessels, 77 were container ships carrying hundreds of thousands of units of increasingly scarce goods.

When the ships do get into port and are unloaded, there is an acute shortage of truckers waiting to get the containers off the docks. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that nearly half of the 2,000 available appointments for truckers at APM Terminals’ Pier 400 in Los Angeles went unfilled Friday.

Read more at NY Post.

{Matzav.com}