Descartes releases July Global Shipping Report: June U.S. container import volumes decrease from May, but pull ahead of 2019 performance

Descartes Systems Group, the global leader in uniting logistics-intensive businesses in commerce, released its July Global Shipping Report for logistics and supply chain professionals. In June 2023, U.S. container import volumes decreased slightly compared to May 2023. Although the decline was not as much as in previous years, volumes were higher than pre-pandemic 2019. Port transit times decreased to their lowest levels since Descartes began tracking them. The U.S. West Coast labor situation appears to be resolved with a tentative agreement between the parties, but the major Canadian West Coast ports are in the throes of a strike. The July update of the logistics metrics Descartes is tracking shows slightly stronger import volume performance than previous years and signs that key challenges to global supply chain performance in 2023, such as U.S. West Coast labor relations and port transit time delays, continue to improve.

June 2023 U.S. container import volumes decreased 0.7% from May 2023 to 2,081,793 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) (see Figure 1). Versus June 2022, TEU volume was down 16.1%, but up 6.0% from pre-pandemic June 2019. Unlike the first four months of 2023, the growth in import volume in June accelerated past 2019 volumes by 2.1% for the same period in each year.

Figure 1. U.S. Container Import Volume Year-over-Year Comparison

“While June U.S. container import volumes were down, they did not recede as much as has happened in the past (see Figure 2),” said Chris Jones, EVP Industry Descartes. “Port transit time delays fell to their lowest level since Descartes started tracking them and the volume share at West Coast ports exceeded the share at East Coast ports for the first time since March 2022.”

Figure 2: May to June U.S. Container Import Volume Comparison