Global suppliers continue to face problems while demands steadily increase due to the rattling of supply chains during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Around the world, manufacturers and distributors of goods have reported shortages as they continue to struggle to produce on the same scale as they did before the pandemic. The decline in production is a result of worker and supply shortages, among other reasons, according to CNBC.
“As the global economic recovery continues to gather steam, what is increasingly apparent is how it will be stymied by supply-chain disruptions that are now showing up at every corner,” Tim Uy of Moody’s Analytics said in a report last Monday, according to CNBC.
Despite a notable spike in freight rates from China to the US, the global trade system still wrestles with delivery challenges that caused a chain reaction in delays, effectively pushing the prices of imported and exported goods to increase, according to CNBC. Many retail stores and their customers have reported empty shelves with no new goods to restock.
Last week, China reported an increase of 4.9% for its third-quarter GDP, but this was less than good news, because industrial operation figures for September fell short of projections, according to CNBC.
With holidays right around the corner, what this could all mean for consumers is higher prices and emptier shelves as the supply chain fights to meet the pent-up demand for goods, CNBC reported.