will supply chains ever return to "normal"?

[EVTrucking]

The push overseas was largely cost driven but also a response to labor demands and work rules. Remember the 'jobs bank' UAW pushed? That was crippling...

Not true. It was to create a brand new huge market! Labor costs in the US are high but it was the rallying justification cover for selling out to China.

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[NY_Rob]

China is also willing and eager to pollute their land and poison their people for pennies producing products that no other country (other than the poorest of poor) are willing to produce.

China will pay dearly down the road for the environmental damage they are doing to their own country in order to be the lowest bidder on everything.

Poorest of the poor battery rebuilding in India/Pakistan with absolutely no regard for worker health:

 

[Gator42]

Not true. It was to create a brand new huge market! Labor costs in the US are high but it was the rallying justification cover for selling out to China.

I'll stand by my statement...and it's still a major challenge for US manufacturing. There's good reasons for the sense of urgency to build a new plant in GA or SC or TN...we'll see it soon enough...

 

[pc500]

There are a lot of factors at play...

You had entire spend categories abolished like travel and everybody had the money to spend on physical goods instead.

You still have record low employment participation rate and regardless of unemployment there's literally 5 to 10% less people working. Not because I can't find a job but because they aren't looking or don't care to work.

You had a government that was afraid to stifle inflation earlier under fears of starting a recession with an unknown pandemic.

Of course you had free money too in that contributed but arguably it was only a small factor. The shifts and purchasing and labor market conditions were more major.

Just my opinion

 

[Dark-Fx]

Does anyone else think it's funny to see rich people being offended that other people would have the gall to also want to be rich.

I'm not defending anyone's behavior, I just think this is not a group (myself included) that is qualified to complain about others being/getting rich. Complain about the behavior all you want, but we shouldn't complain about wealth when we are spending more than 10x the global median net worth on a car

Basically poverty level here.

 

[Tomgriff]

Back to the original question, the shipping part of the supply chain is improving and will likely continue to improve. Ship wait times on the West Coast have come down and the price of containers from Asia to the West Coast has dropped. Last week I think the price had fallen to around $4K, down from peaks around $20K. $4K is still around double what it was pre-pandemic, but a $2K difference on a container is not a significant driver of cost for most goods being shipped. The bottlenecks are still intermodal connections from port to rail and lack of truck/rail chassis. The shipping part of the supply chain isn't going to remain the problem. Although shipping won't be the sticking point, I don't think logistics and manufacturing will go back to pre-pandemic routes as I think companies are going to put a higher value on supply chain resiliency which will, and has, resulting some shifting of production to near-shore locations.

 

[Zoidz]

Supply Chain will not return to normal soon, if ever, due to Labor. If you don't have the needed labor, Supply Chain is screwed. Period. It will take years, if ever, for the labor issue to resolve.

It's been touch on by other comments, here's some additional data to consider. Like many out there, one of my businesses is struggling to hire, as is my wife's medical practice. I researched this one evenng to try to better understand why. By my estimates (from reading various sources of data online) the workforce in the US shrank by 2 to 4 million workers during COVID! Perhaps 500,000 in the active workforce died or became unemployable directly due to COVID. 2 million+ retired early during COVID. Another hard to quantify number of people who were two income full time households decided during COVID to become a one income household - perhaps 500k, maybe more? Any politican taking credit for the low unemployment figures is blowing inhaled pot smoke and using warped mirrors.

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