John’s Blog

3-8-10

Dear Friends,

As I write this week’s message I am attending the International Warehouse Logistics Association (IWLA) annual conference. The 119^th annual conference is well attended and packed with good information. I presented on current trends in Food Safety along with Patrick O’Conner who is our trade association’s representative in Washington DC.

In last weeks news we learned that the unemployment rate held at 9.7% giving hope that perhaps employment losses are stabilizing. The Labor Department reported that employers cut 36,000 jobs which is the fewest number of February jobs reduced in two years. Service industries led the way by adding 24,000 jobs.

The US Census Bureau revised their report to show growth in factory orders in January although at lower numbers than initially reported. Overall the growth is still positive.

In transportation, intermodal rail traffic increased 17.5% when compared to the same week from the previous year. The AAR said that intermodal volume grew 205,817 units the week ending February 27^th with containers up by 23.2% and trailers falling 6.4%.

Freight traffic excluding intermodal grew 2.6% to 290,261 carloads.

The rise in container traffic is reflected in the Port Tracker numbers showing an increase in containers flowing into our nation’s ports. The National Retail Federation is forecasting that traffic will increase in the single digits and expects that by summer the economy will improve escalating import container growth to double digit increases.

It appears that retailers are ready to stock up as the economy improves.

At Wagner we are ready to help your company with any supply chain challenges. Please don’t hesitate to call if we may help with any stocking initiatives or transportation challenges.

Wagner has the people and technology to perform for you.

Have a great week!

John