Despite consumer caution and a muted peak holiday shipping season, cargo at the Port of Los Angeles trended upward in September, reporting a 5.4% increase over the same month last year.
It was the second consecutive month the cargo volume increased at the port.
Imports were up 14% year-to-year in September and exports rose by 55%.
Port of L.A. Executive Director Gene Seroka made the comments Monday, Oct. 23, at his monthly virtual media news conference.
Speaking in the guest spot this month was Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the National Retail Federation who said consumers were proving to be resilient but are also now “paying close attention to where every dollar goes.”
The economy, he said, is proving to be an anomaly, difficult to read or predict, as unemployment remains low and wages are up while, at the same time, inflation continues to be a stubborn foe.
“We saw a dramatic shift 18 months ago,” Shay said, “when inflation started to hit.”
Consumer spending shifted, as predicted, from buying goods to a focus on services and “experiences” as the coronavirus pandemic waned and people began vacationing and going out to dinner and concerts again.
The NRF recently put out its forecasts for holiday spending this year.
Households, on average, Shay reported, are expected to spend $875 on the holidays this year, with three-quarters of that ($620) going to goods and the other $255 toward decorations, food and other holiday-related spending.
“There’s an enormous uncertainty in the market place,” Shay said, “and this economy is not like anything we’ve ever seen before.”
The so-called peak season — the time typically in the late-summer, early fall months when cargo arrives in the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach for the fall back-to-school and holiday shopping — seems to have arrived early, in August, and was relatively weak this year, both Seroka and Shay said.
In part, that can be related to warehouses that still remain…
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