Puget Sound ports weathering the financial storm from pandemic

Washington businesses are counting on the state’s ports to get their goods to market, but are the ports ready to handle upcoming shipments?

Washington cherry harvest in coronavirus crosshairs

The problem the ports have been dealing with has been on the destination side of the supply chain. With Asian market ports closed earlier this year, it’s become difficult to get products to customers.

The other issue early on was the fact that ships normally arriving full of cargo in Washington weren’t even sailing. There were 19 canceled sailings in March alone, a total of 32 for the year.

Northwest Seaport Alliance CEO John Wolfe said that is going to continue.

“As of today, we anticipate an additional 19 canceled sailings as we look out to quarter two, but this is a very fluid situation and these numbers could change,” he said.

When those ships don’t arrive here with goods in containers, we don’t have the containers to send back the other way. That’s why some shipments just couldn’t go. Container volumes dropped 22% in March and 15% for the year.

Port of Seattle Commissioner Peter Steinbrueck wants Washington shippers to know that our ports are ready to go.

“We don’t anticipate any stoppages here on our end,” he said. “We are welcoming with open arms the seasonal flows that occur agriculturally. We are ready to go to load those containers up.”

What about the workforce? With fewer ships and fewer containers to handle, you would expect to see an impact to jobs. That said, Wolfe said union longshoremen are hanging in there.

“The registered workforce has found that even though we have had a downturn in volume that they are able to pick up work pretty much every day,” he said.

Port of Seattle delays cruise season indefinitely over coronavirus concerns

It’s the casual workforce — those that are called when the union needs some help — that have been facing lost hours and paychecks.

Ultimately, the report from our ports sounds promising, with most seeing the slowdown turning around.

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