By Arthur Chen      photo：Saraí Zuno，Link：Pexels

Another round of blank voyage came in October. THE Alliance has announced the cancellation of 20 sailings, followed by 2M and Ocean Alliance, which cancelled 14 and 6 sailings respectively.

Some phenomena in the consuming market have attracted our attention. Recently, there were interesting reports in the news that KFC has cancelled its boneless chicken nuggets. At the same time I bought a glass of bubble tea without pearls in. The gas station in the UK did not provide petro. What happen ?

Affected by the pandemic, many related companies in the chicken supply chain have experienced labor shortages. There is a serious shortage of workers in farms, processing plants, transportation and other links. The gap in the available labor force for more than a year has not yet been filled. The labor force mentioned here is mostly unskilled labor, wage by hours. Since last year, the US federal government has implemented a large-scale economic relief package due to the covid pandemic. The unemployment benefits in the United States is almost twice on minimum wage, which might encourages the American people to take unemployment benefits rather than seeking jobs. Such "shortage of labor" has led to the current scene. KFC in the United States, due to insufficient supply of boneless chicken, decided to temporarily cancel the advertising of the product. American fast food chain Wingstop is famous for its "fried chicken wings". However, because of the shortage of chicken wings recently, new chicken thigh products have to be developed as a substitute. Most restaurants in the United States have seen a phenomenon of shrinking consumption because of the chaotic supply chain and high transportation costs. Two-thirds of the ingredients on the menus are in short supply, which makes the operation of the restaurant more difficult. In fact, the United States is not only facing a "chicken shortage" !  According to market information, the supply of poultry in the United States in August decreased by 20% year-on-year; beef reserves decreased by 7.7% year-on-year; pork breast reserves decreased by 44% year-on-year, falling to the lowest level since 2017. After the outbreak of the pandemic, almost all the meat reserves in the United States have been exhausted. With the current available labor force, it is far from being able to solve the "shortage of labor."  Bubble tea also suffers. The pearl raw materials in European and American bubble tea are almost entirely imported from Asia. However, due to port congestion, insufficient of chasis, shortage of truck drivers, and transportation delays, the supply of pearls in the United States has been tight for more than half a year. The bubble tea has no pearls. Shortage of labor and delays in the international logistics supply chain have directly evolved into a daily problem for the public to eat and drink.

In the past month, I have always heard that there is no gasoline to fill at the gas stations in the UK. The crude oil price is still around US$80-90 per barrel. Although the price has risen, it won’t be impossible to buy crude oil! But 90% of gas stations in parts of the UK are sold out. The fuel shortage is not due to the lack of fuel in the UK, but because fuel is piled up in ports and refineries. The main reason for this phenomenon is the shortage of truck drivers. According to reports from the transportation industry, the United Kingdom has been affected by the covid pandemic, population aging and the loss of millions of foreign workers caused by Brexit, and there has been a shortage of tens of thousands of freight truck drivers in the transportation industry. As a result, thousands of gas stations in the UK are experiencing fuel shortages. Fearing that the car does not have fuel, people flocked to the gas station to fill up their cars in long lines. It is ridiculous that, in addition to using the military to supplement road transport, the British government also announced that it will issue 5,000 short-term working visas to truck drivers from October, valid for 3 months until December 24 on Christmas Eve. However, such temporary measures did not attract most foreign workers to the UK. So far, the fuel chain disconnection caused by land transportation has not improved.

Like the United States, the United Kingdom is also experiencing labor shortage. It is now facing a severe shortage of food materials on one side, but burning pigs on the other side. Sounds ridiculous. The reason behind this extremely contradictory phenomenon is the shortage of labor in the slaughterhouse. According to reports, 200,000 newborn piglets are sent to the slaughterhouse every week in the UK. If they cannot be slaughtered in time, they can only be destroyed because of the high cost of raising pigs. The current shortage of butcher workers in the UK accounts for about 15%. If the shortage of labor cannot be solved, nearly 100,000 live pigs will be burned tragically. If the slaughterhouse cannot slaughter these pigs in time, the supply chain will be affected, because piglets are born every week. The supply chain severance caused by the shortage of labor seems to be an urgent problem that the governments of post-epidemic countries must solve.

The latest news on the logistics supply side is that after China large-scale restrictions on industrial power use last week, it has immediately caused the effect of supply chain disconnection. Basically, starting from the long holiday on Oct 1st in China, large number of shipments could not be shipped in time by the impact of power restrictions that put lots of booking in October were cancelled. In order to balance the supply in space, maritime alliances such as THE Alliance again released blank voyage plans this week. In the next 4 weeks, THE Alliance has announced the cancellation of 20 sailings, followed by 2M and Ocean Alliance, which canceled 14 and 6 sailings respectively. In the first two weeks of October, because of the closure of Chinese factories during the Golden Week, about 80% of the blank voyages occurred in Asia-North America and Asia-Northern Europe-Mediterranean trade. Just like the previous analysis, the shipping company will always adjust the supply of space by canceling the shipping voyage to achieve a balance between supply and demand. From the standpoint of the shipping lines, they have already made a big profit this year and don't care about tiny loss of several weeks of suspension. They don't know how long power off shock wave will last? Rather than pre-determined voyages, it is better to respond to market conditions with extra voyages added on later. From another perspective, the four weeks blank voyage can also be slightly ease the congestion on the West Coast of the United States. The global logistics supply chain does affect by any incident, and there are too many variables out of control by human.

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