How supply chain chaos and sky-high costs could last until 2023

Supply chain woes and port congestion are now getting attention at the central-bank level, given their effects on inflation. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell recently lamented, “It is frustrating to see the bottlenecks and supply chain problems not getting better. In fact … [they are] apparently getting worse.”

Powell foresees supply chain woes “continuing into next year, probably, and holding up inflation longer than we thought.”

But could shipping logjams last even longer, into 2023, propping up inflation even longer than central bankers expect?

Industry experts speaking to American Shipper, as well as other market players and analysts, are increasingly talking about a scenario in which high ocean shipping costs and congestion could persist throughout next year, if not into the following year.