It was difficult to avoid the national news coverage of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) strike during the first week of October. Doomsday scenarios, people hoarding toilet paper, and Union President Harold Daggett’s 7,136-square-foot New Jersey home, complete with a brick pizza oven and a snappy Bentley in his carport, were social media sensations. However, the heart of the ILA’s concerns surrounds automation and its eventual impact on union jobs.

Freight forwarders are sounding the alarm that space will be tight during the normal fourth-quarter retail rush. Many forwarding companies are nudging manufacturers and retailers to lock in higher-than-usual rates now to avoid unpleasant surprises come October. Extra capacity will be a premium if not unattainable in 2024. The air cargo business is up broadly for the year. The International Air Transport Association estimates a rise of 12.7% in global airfreight demand over the first four months of the year, with Asia-Pacific notching a 14% gain alone in April.

FedEx has embarked on a daunting $1.5 billion company-wide reorganization. Announced last year, the Tennessee-based transportation and logistics giant combined its Express and Ground delivery units into one business model. The move rattled insiders, as the separate operating structure had long been upheld as founder Fred Smith’s legacy. Yet, market forces suggest a change is needed.

US forces are currently operating at a pace in the Red Sea not witnessed since World War II. Over the past several months, estimates point to US Navy aircraft strike groups having conducted over 750 engagements. Many of these include very pricey Tomahawk missiles, 135 to be exact. In early July, Maersk confirmed one of their vessels was fired upon by the Houthis in the Gulf of Aden. This was a US-flagged vessel and is considered to be the Houthi rebel’s longest-range attack yet.

Factories in countries like Poland or Romania come with higher labor costs but minimal geopolitical hurdles. The shift away from China and other single country or region suppliers began to take shape during the Covid pandemic. Factory shutdowns, transportation delays, and rising shipping costs unnerved suppliers and further incentivized the search for new providers. In addition to international tensions with Russia and Iran, supply chains are squeezed with fewer and fewer options.

Context is by far the biggest challenge for machines. Once vessels enter busier waters or are closer to land, other vessels, infrastructure such as offshore wind farms, and similar obstacles emerge. Even at sea, there are a host of hidden hazards that humans are adept at navigating, but it is still unknown whether a machine can successfully avoid collisions. The 13-hour AUTOSHIP voyage was a success, but learning in real-time with real cargo can be dangerous and costly.

One of the factors investigators are looking into surrounding the Dali cargo ship crash into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore is “dirty fuel.” An officer aboard the ship recounted the presence of a heavy smell of burning fuel in the engine room after one of the engines shut down. Dirty or contaminated fuel can create clogging issues with a vessel’s principal power generators.

Before the pandemic, US factories hired eight to nine people for every ten openings. That number has now dropped to six, and the ratio is at its lowest level since 2000. With flex-work, plants are beginning to target segments of the population that had not traditionally been employed in the customary 12-hour plant shifts. These included young parents and those who care for aging parents or have similar obligations that make traditional set hours difficult to work.

Roughly 18% of global trade volume passed through the two canals in 2023. Volvo and Tesla already halted vehicle production for two weeks in January due to parts shortages. Many apparel companies are turning to air delivery to ensure spring fashions arrive on time. In 2020 and 2021, shippers passed higher costs to consumers, fomenting inflation across an expansive basket of goods.

Ships like the MSC Seascape are a big reason why Rees is having so much fun. “The difference in the cruise business from a few years ago is that now the attraction is the ship,” Rees notes. Galveston is home to some of the newest and most beautiful ships sailing today, including the newly built Carnival Jubilee, the Norwegian Prima and Royal Caribbean’s Oasis Class Harmony of the Seas.

Online grocery delivery services are experiencing exponential growth. The ease and convenience of ordering from the comfort of a couch is understandably attractive, yet, as with anything, there are costs associated with this convenience. The last mile of e-commerce grocery delivery carries a hefty carbon burden, most notably from inefficient packaging, a reliance on traditional carbon-polluting transportation, and the dependence on large brick-and-mortar stores to supply e-commerce customers. Consumers are actively seeking brands that incorporate sustainable practices. In this article, we address the common challenges to sustainable last-mile grocery delivery and offer actionable and proven practices to lessen the environmental impact.

Agricultural commodity ETFs invest in principal farmland commodities such as wheat, corn, soybeans, and cattle. Most use derivative products like options or futures, while others invest directly in the commodities. Commodity performance is not typically in harmony with the broader stock market, so during market downturns, positions in commodity-based agricultural ETFs can provide a nice cushion.

If we zoom out and look at global trade growth, there is little evidence to suggest we are in a deglobalization moment. At the onset of the pandemic global trade growth slowed, but it has since rebounded and is arguably at its highest value ever. Yet, viewed solely as a share of GDP, here is where we see a dip. Most of the dip can be explained by China and India. From roughly 2003 to 2010 both economies were exporting goods and services at a steady clip. India continued to climb but eventually began declining by 2013 while China has experienced an unvarying decline since 2010.

Minimizing carbon emissions was never going to be easy. The industrialized world is uncomfortably wed to said emissions so finding alternatives – that are cost-friendly – is the challenge. Hydrogen continues to be one of the leading contenders, but a lesser-known chemical compound has officially entered the conversation. A 2021 International Energy Agency report posits that while cars will likely depend on batteries, and planes on biofuels, it is the shipping industry that will require ammonia to eventually curb emissions.

The warehouse sector is the latest to embrace gig workers. App-driven companies like Instacart and Uber work hand-in-hand with the gig economy as their businesses hinge on flexibility and efficiency. More traditional sectors such as logistics and warehousing have been more rigid in terms of workloads and schedules, yet a tight market for blue-collar workers is shifting the landscape. During recession times, blue-collar workers generally face steeper job losses than their white-collar peers. This bears out according to an analysis of Labor Department data surrounding the recessions of 1990-91, 2001, 2007-09, and 2020.

While shipping losses were at a record low in 2022, cargo and hull fires, economic uncertainty, and “dark” tanker fleets are safety challenges on the horizon for the maritime sector. Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) is a corporate insurance carrier providing risk consultancy and insurance solutions worldwide. The company’s annual Safety & Shipping Review looks at loss trends and risks for the maritime sector and the 2023 version is officially out. The most notable headline of the report is the continued decline in shipping losses. Thirty years ago it was common for 200-plus vessels to go missing every year. It has been six years since triple-digit losses have been registered and last year there were fewer than 40.

US ports are falling behind their European and Asian counterparts when it comes to automation. The culprits vary, but opposition from organized labor is a key bottleneck. Everything from self-driving vehicles to automated cranes is being opposed by the dockworkers’ union. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union represents roughly 22,400 dockworkers amongst 29 ports along the West Coast. Some automation had been agreed to in contract negotiations in 2008 and 2014, but in practice, implementation has been slow. Meanwhile, Singapore now boasts arguably the world’s largest fully automated port. The Asian giant joins Yangshan and Ningbo, China, Tanjung Pelepas, Malaysia, and Khalifa Port, Abu Dhabi as the most efficient ports in the world.

One of the nation’s preeminent trucking companies has shuttered after 99 years in operation. Yellow Corporation employed approximately 30,000 people of which 22,000 were Teamsters members. In terms of size, it is likely the largest collapse in US trucking. On the heels of its 100th anniversary, Yellow staved off the inevitable for nearly three years. Despite a $700 million Covid rescue loan in 2020, the Nashville, Tennesse firm could not remain afloat. Started in 1924, Yellow had navigated rough waters before 2023 but many point to a merger in 2003 with Roadway as the initial steps that led to the company’s ultimate demise.

After two years of declining availability, the industrial real-estate vacancy rate is up again. According to real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield, the first quarter of 2023 posted a 3.6% nationwide industrial real-estate vacancy rate marking the third straight quarter increase. Warehouse space and logistics networks continue to be pared back and the remaining half of 2023 will appear to follow a familiar trajectory. The pandemic fueled a red-hot warehouse hiring spree adding roughly 700,000 workers over a two-year period. Average hourly pay increased by 8% and investment in logistics networks was beefed up.

E-commerce growth has slowed leaving pandemic-fueled firms in a bind. Blue Apron, American Eagle Outfitters, and Shopify are just a few of the companies that ramped up their logistics networks in 2020/21 with customers homebound and purchasing online. Amazon has been the gold standard in this arena, but few firms can achieve scale. Now that online commerce is back to pre-pandemic levels, delivering goods at the same speed to home after home is proving to be a strenuous undertaking. American Eagle was especially aggressive over the last three years having established a logistics subsidiary, Quiet Platforms, to facilitate increased demand.