Supply Chain Woes Keep Coming as Average Wait Time Nears 17 Days

Container ships are still having a difficult time reaching ports in a timely manner, with the average wait time at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in California now sitting at almost 17 days, Bloomberg reported.

The queue was present both at anchor and in a holding zone, and efforts to clear it haven’t been working, according to the report. The queue ended up at 83 ships as of late Friday (Nov. 12), which was more than 81, the previous high from earlier the same week.

The economy has suffered from the damage to supply chains, the report stated. U.S. Port of Long Beach Executive Director Mario Cordero said every sector of the supply chain has reached capacity.

“We are trying to add capacity by searching for vacant land to store containers, expanding the hours of operation at terminals, and implementing a fee that will incentivize ocean carriers to pull their containers out of the port as soon as possible,” he said, per the report.

Last week, the White House said there had been incremental progress at L.A.-Long Beach, with a 20% decline in the amount of containers sitting for over nine days in the week leading to Nov. 8, according to the report.

The costs for freight are being affected too. It cost $9,947 to ship a 40-foot container from Shanghai to Los Angeles last week, which was an improvement from the September amount of $12,424. But it was still 145% higher than the rates from a year ago, per data from the Drewery World Container Index cited in the report.

The situation could prove a political quagmire for President Joe Biden, with inflation in the news and falling consumer sentiment, along with higher living costs, according to the report.

Last week, Biden spoke with the leaders of various big companies, like Walmart, Target, UPS and FedEx, to find solutions to get merchandise moving at a quicker pace.

Read more: Growing Concerns About Inflation, Supply Chains Garner ‘All Hands on Deck’ Response

After the calls were done, Biden posted a video saying the CEOs were confident that supply chain issues would be alleviated before the holidays.