Supply chain problems from ships to shelves, by the numbers


"The pandemic is haunting the global supply chain and, by extension, shoppers," two months before what's expected to be a big holiday shopping season, The Washington Post reports. Container ships are clogging ports, shipping costs are rising, and there's a dearth of truck drivers and warehouse workers.
So things may get a little rough for shoppers, retailers, and the chain of companies that move goods from factories to ships to shelves, but there are big winners, too. Here's a look at some illustrative numbers:
- 36 percent — share of U.S. imports that pass through the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex
- 75 — number of container ships waiting outside the Port of Los Angeles on Thursday, according to Time's Alana Semuels
- 40 — number of container ships waiting off California ports Sept. 1
- $20,586 — median cost of shipping a standard container from China to the U.S. West Coast in September, twice the cost in July and four times the cost in January, according to the Freightos index
- 10.8 million — record number of containers the Port of Los Angeles expects to handle in 2021
- $23 billion — profits booked by the 7 largest publicly traded ocean carriers in the first half of 2021, up from $1 billion a year earlier
- 14th — World Bank ranking for U.S. on moving goods efficiently in 2018, out of 160 countries
- 0 - 50 — number of trucks arriving to pick up containers during overnight shifts at Long Beach, despite 24/7 openings, according to freight logistics firm Flexport
- 90 percent — turnover rate at some trucking companies in the last quarter of 2020
- 25 miles — length freight trains were backed up trying to enter Union Pacific's enormous Global 4 shipping facility in Joliet, Illinois, over the summer
- 500 — number of football fields that would fit in the Global 4 facility
- 17 – days it takes for a container chassis to leave that Union Pacific facility and return for another container, up from normal 3.5 days
- 31,000 — employees on Union Pacific's payroll, more than a third fewer than 2015
- 1 million — toys from Amazon's holiday list sold by Oct. 13, nine weeks before Christmas
- $1.3 trillion — projected 2021 U.S. holiday retail sales, up 7-9 percent from 2020, according to Deloitte
- $785 — amount the average consumer is projected to spend on the 2021 holiday season, according to NPD
Sources: The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Time
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
-
What to know before turning to AI for financial advice
the explainer It can help you crunch the numbers — but it might also pocket your data
-
Book reviews: 'The Headache: The Science of a Most Confounding Affliction—and a Search for Relief' and 'Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run'
Feature The search for a headache cure and revisiting Springsteen's 'Born to Run' album on its 50th anniversary
-
Keith McNally' 6 favorite books that have ambitious characters
Feature The London-born restaurateur recommends works by Leo Tolstoy, John le Carré, and more
-
New York court tosses Trump's $500M fraud fine
Speed Read A divided appeals court threw out a hefty penalty against President Trump for fraudulently inflating his wealth
-
Trump said to seek government stake in Intel
Speed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
US to take 15% cut of AI chip sales to China
Speed Read Nvidia and AMD will pay the Trump administration 15% of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with Disney
Speed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B deal
Speed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
-
FCC greenlights $8B Paramount-Skydance merger
Speed Read The Federal Communications Commission will allow Paramount to merge with the Hollywood studio Skydance
-
A potential railway megamerger raises monopoly questions
The Explainer Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern would create the country's largest railway operator
-
Tesla reports plummeting profits
Speed Read The company may soon face more problems with the expiration of federal electric vehicle tax credits