I caught a glancing blow from this. My 10-day trans-atlantic shipment was quoted February 24, initiated March 15 and available to me May 5. I hear it's gotten substantially worse. When I was there, I was told it would be 15 minutes to pick up my shipment, which was an 800lb palleted crate roughly the size of a dishwasher. We waited half an hour, went and got lunch, came back, and then waited another 90 minutes. The problem discussed in the article is, in fact, the challenge of getting in and out of port facilities. The forklift drivers there told me that they were making approximately $3 an hour less than if they stayed home and collected unemployment, which is one reason they were so understaffed. Meanwhile, this was at an intermodal depot - the thing made it off the boat in Toronto March 26, and then took five weeks to get to the point where I could pick it up. So that's my experience. At least I have some. Seems to me that you're favoring what you read on YCombinator over a first-person account.
I think you misunderstood me a bit. This guy is totally right that the jam is in waiting for trucks to get in and load. The truckers and the warehouse workers are getting under paid due to all the flow problems. But… If the trucks are waiting, then there are enough trucks. If the cranes were running but waiting for trucks that would be a truck shortage. Since there are a bunch of extra trucks waiting there bottleneck is elsewhere. If you threw more trucks at the problem it would just make the lines longer. In a perfect world the number of trucks would actually stink down to just enough that there was barely any wait at all because that’s all the port can handle. The above model is of course overly simple, all trucks are not the same, some might be able to load right away and some might take forever to get the right container. But this guys report seems to indicate that the bottle neck is port side
Here's my beef with Hacker News: Nowhere in the article does he say "the problem is a truck shortage." The article lays out a panoply of variations on 'this job sucks and doesn't pay enough.' Not enough cranes, drivers being underpaid, yadda yadda yadda - his basic point is that the companies and systems that caused the shortage are cashing in on the shortage while the solutions aren't even being discussed because they generally involve paying other people. But some choad on HN went "something something trucks" and everyone is so wrapped around the wheel on the semantics of the issue that you had to come in here like a missionary from some other shitty site to see if anyone will engage you on 2nd order misreading of a very simple article that happens to not make the argument you wanna make. No. I'm not interested in engaging your straw man.
“ his basic point is that the companies and systems that caused the shortage are cashing in on the shortage while the solutions aren't even being discussed because they generally involve paying other people” Let’s start there. There are 2 bottle necks he points out: ports and warehouses. Ports and warehouses are both labor constrained. Warehouses are just shitty places to work and I’m sure that currently ports while better paying are too. Warehouses have increased wages but probably not enough to cover shitty work conditions, ports probably haven’t because union negotiations lock in rates for a long time. I think it’s possible to pay more than negotiated wages but management in those places sucks and is totally incapable of creating solutions. I’ve seen hiring bonuses offered but they are tiny compared to actual higher wages. Either way though its too late to hire for Christmas In a port. You might still be able to get seasonal warehouse staff but it’s gonna cost. There are probably some organizational inefficiencies in the port operation that you can unfuck to get 10-20% efficiency boost but short of military takeover of the port i don’t think you could get them passed in time for Christmas. I don’t think a CEO tweetstorm is gonna change much. My gut feel is that none of this really matters in the sense that we are way too late. The logistics flow from ship to home basically requires the stuff to be on a truck this week or next to make it to your house by Christmas