Consumers are noticing a lack of merchandise on shelves and manufacturers are having difficulty receiving production parts. The global supply chain crisis is impacting all economic sectors. The North Country relies on robust cross border trade and supply chain issues are impacting both New York and Quebec businesses. This week the North Country Chamberand the Federation of Quebec Chambers of Commerceheld a joint webinar on North American supply chain issues.
The joint virtual chamber meeting featured experts from both New York and Quebec with presentations on what is causing the supply chain problems, the resultant impacts and what the U.S. and Canadian governments could do to mitigate economic repercussions.
Clarkson University Global Supply Chain Management Program Director Dr. Farzad Mahmoodi says most of the reasons for the supply chain disruptions are well known and related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Most of our supply chains are designed for efficiency rather than resiliency. Resiliency in the sense that if a disruption happens how fast do we recover from that. A lot of focus in the last 20-30 years has been on leaning up the operations, using just-in-time systems. But at the same time haven’t helped resiliency much.”
Prevost-Nova Bus Vice President of Legal, Regulatory and Public Affairs Emmanuelle Toussaint described some of the problems the companies are experiencing due to broken supply chains.
“It is really important to understand this whole supply chain, how it is linked together. Because the goods or the material it has to go quite often to a port and then it is being moved by a truck to a rail station, for example. Then it can move it again by truck to go to a warehouse and then to the final destination. But as we have seen there’s really a big problem about the truck drivers," says Toussaint. "We are missing truck drivers. And this is something that has a huge impact on the logistic side. So everything around ports, trucking and the rail it has a direct impact on the actual situation.”
The chambers’ presidents relayed questions posted during the seminar. North Country Chamber President Garry Douglas fielded a query for Dr. Mahmoodi.
“Just how bad is the truck driver shortage getting in North America?”
Mahmoodi responded, “The shortage of truck drivers is a real one. It started actually before the pandemic and it’s continued. I’ve seen estimates of a shortage of about 50,000 to 80,000 truck drivers.”
Dr. Mahmoodi believes supply chain disruptions will continue well into next year.
“I don’t see or expect a return to what we call normal operations until the third quarter 2022. And that’s if the variants that again we are basically concerned about doesn’t become a bad one. I mean it obviously can get a lot worse. We don’t know that yet.”
