Three-quarters of supply chain and logistics organizations face labor shortages

In fact, 37% experiences a high to extremely high deficit and 61% indicates that transportation activities suffer the most

76% of supply chain and logistics companies are facing a labor shortage, with 37% indicating that the shortage is high to extremely high. This is according to new research from Descartes Systems Group, market leader in supply chain and logistics software solutions, among 1,000 supply chain and logistics leaders in Europe and North America.

Transportation and warehouse operations suffer most from labor shortage

The labor shortage has a negative impact on various supply chain and logistics activities of companies: transportation activities (61%) and warehouse activities (56%) suffer the most, according to respondents, followed by transportation planning (51%), inventory and distribution planning (51%), customer service (42%) and demand planning (37%). Although transportation and warehouse operations are highly labor-intensive, the findings also show that 55% of supply chain and logistics leaders say knowledge workers are the hardest to recruit - and that they will become increasingly important as supply chain and logistics operations become more technologically supported and data processing becomes more important. 

Peak season performance is negatively affected

The labor shortage also has a negative impact on the performance of firms during the peak season (70%). Furthermore, respondents noted that the performance of logistics partners is negatively impacted by the labor shortage (64%). Finally, the shortage also negatively impacted customer service levels (58%).

The results also showed that the impact of labor shortage depends on financial performance, growth, management's perceived importance of supply chain and logistics activities, and the success of employee retention programs, among other factors. There is evidence that business performance is interrelated - and that the impact of labor shortage can be mitigated if business leaders understand the full potential of their supply chain and logistics operations and the importance of employee retention to supply chain and logistics performance.

For all information, you can read the entire report here Finding.