North American shipment volume and expenditures rose again in March as shipments picked up significantly from the West Coast ports. The U.S. and global economies did not grow as much as expected in the first quarter, but freight movement in the U.S. continues to strengthen.
News / Brian Higgs
Import cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is expected to rise 8 percent this month over the same time last year as West Coast ports continue to recover from a backlog of cargo that built up before a tentative new labor agreement was signed, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released today by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.
Roughly six weeks after the International Warehouse & Longshore Union and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) reached a tentative five-year labor agreement, following nine months of often acrimonious negotiations that led to myriad supply chain and logistics disruptions, the ILWU said late last week that steps are being taken to make the tentative agreement a done deal.
American Journal of Transportation
A union caucus representing dockworkers at West Coast ports voted to recommend to its members a labor contract deal reached over months of negotiations that led to major disruptions to trans-Pacific trade, the U.S. Department of Labor said on Friday.
Delegates for International Longshore and Warehouse Union members are recommending the full union ratify a proposed five-year contract with West Coast port businesses.
Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 126,000 in March, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment continued to trend up in professional and business services, health care, and retail trade, while mining lost jobs.
Institute for Supply Management
Economic activity in the manufacturing sector expanded in March for the 27th consecutive month, and the overall economy grew for the 70th consecutive month, say the nation’s supply executives in the latest Manufacturing ISM® Report On Business®.
Bureau of Transportation Statistics
U.S.-NAFTA freight totaled $89.3 billion in January 2015 as three out of five transportation modes – rail, truck, and air – carried more U.S.-NAFTA freight than in January 2014, according to the TransBorder Freight Data released today by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) (Figure 1, Table 1). Year-over-year, the value of U.S.-NAFTA freight flows by all modes decreased by 1.2 percent. The value of NAFTA trade by pipeline and vessel declined in January due to the reduced unit price of mineral fuel shipments.
Top executives from the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles held a kickoff meeting last week, starting to work together on cargo conveyance strategies that will enhance supply chain speed and efficiency, according to a City of Los Angeles statement.
“Widespread gains among the leading indicators continue to point to short-term growth,” said Ataman Ozyildirim, Economist at The Conference Board. “However, easing in the LEI’s six-month change suggests that we may be entering a period of more moderate expansion. With the February increase, the LEI remains in growth territory, but weakness in the industrial sector and business investment is holding economic growth back, despite improvements in labor markets and consumer confidence.”