The port of Felixstowe, where 36% of the UK entry and departure containers circulate, is at the limit of its capacity for the lack of delivery truckers. The same problem that caused the tails in the gas stations now threatens to collapse the port of the southeast of England, which has begun to divert boats to other points of docking about the lack of space.
"We had to stop the downloading operations simply because there is no place to leave the containers," the Times' Larks Mikael Jansen, head of the east-west ocean network of Maersk. The freight company has confirmed that at least two boats - with capacity for 20,000 containers - have had to be diverted to other ports in the last week.
"We found ourselves before a perfect storm of problems," Mike Bowden, from the Cory Brothers company. "The port (from Felixtowe) is so full that there is not even space for the return of empty containers. We have been warning of this problem since June: it is time for the government to feel with us and listen to what is happening. I have never seen A situation like this ".
At the lack of 50,000 to 100,000 trucks by Brexit join the problems caused by the Restrictions of the Covid and the rebound of imports in the last quarter of the year. Entrepreneurs have launched the alarm voice and warn that many goods -of furniture to toys- will not get to store stores for Christmas.
A spokesman for the Department of Transport came out of the criticisms claiming that the situation of Felixstow is not different from that of other large ports of the world, which are also experiencing "problems with supply chains and for the capacity for containers" as Consequence of economic reactivation after the pandemic.
According to the latest official data, the British labor market has registered a record of 1.1 million vacancies, while unemployment has dropped to 4.5% and wages have experienced a rising trend. The lack of personnel is especially serious in sectors such as transport, construction and food.
"The lack of personnel are committing our economic recovery," Tony Wilson, director of the Institute of Employment Studies. "This and other problems will not be solved by themselves nor simply exhorting companies to pay more to their workers."
Date Of Update: 15 October 2021, 06:48
