ICYMI: Bloomberg: The U.S. Supply-Chain Crisis Is Already Easing

As we head into the holiday season, Bloomberg Opinion published a piece highlighting that, "the supply-chain crunch appears to have already peaked in the U.S." and "the worst may be over."

According to Bloomberg columnist Brooke Sutherland, "evidence keeps piling up to suggest that the U.S. is slowly but surely making progress in easing freight congestion and supply shortages."

Here are just a few highlighted pieces of that evidence:

• Global average ocean freight rates for a 40-foot container have now declined for eight straight weeks
• New data from Freightos indicate the price of shipping a container between East Asia and the West Coast has declined by about 25 percent in just two weeks.
• The number of containers lingering for longer than nine days at the Port of Los Angeles has dropped by about a third
• An influx of additional sweeper ships used to pick up empty containers is also helping to clear dock space for new cargo
• And, companies have confirmed their shelves will be stocked for a robust holiday season, per earnings calls from Target, Walmart, Home Depot, and more.

The coordinated efforts by the Biden-Harris administration, local governments, the ports, retailers, shippers, labor and more must continue. But, according to Bloomberg, "for the supply-chain crunch to get better, it first needed to stop getting worse. That at least appears to have happened."