A shortage of consumer goods could last into the second half of 2022, a supply chain expert said.

Dr. Marko Bastl, director of Marquette University’s Center for Supply Chain Management, said part of the global capacity to produce and move product has been lost during the pandemic. Bastl appeared Sunday on “UpFront,” produced in partnership with WisPolitics.com.

He said consumers are dealing with higher prices, delayed product delivery, and in some cases, empty shelves this holiday season.

There is a shortage of workers in Asia to produce goods and a shortage of drivers in the United States to move goods, Bastl said.

“I think right after (the) New Year what we are going to see is a little bit of decrease in the demand, that’s going to help a little bit with naturally easing up the pressure on our supply chains,” Bastl said.

“But I am confident we are going to be seeing this into the second half of 2022, at least,” he said.

Bastl also said there is not a lot the government can do to ease the situation, though the federal government tried by opening up the Los Angeles port around the clock, seven days a week.

“That was a nice try, right, but because of the issues we have post-port, it didn’t really solve the problem. I don’t see any significant government intervention happening,” he said.

Bastl said it will be up to supply chain management experts to think about how to redesign supply chains to make them more resilient and less susceptible to disruption and risk in the future.

In another segment, an attorney with the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty said his organization and another conservative legal institute are suing a Waukesha County school district to try to force a change in policy regarding students who say they are transgender.

WILL filed suit against the Kettle Moraine School District over the case of an unidentified 12-year-old girl who said she was transgender and asked the school to use different pronouns.

WILL attorney Luke Berg said “schools have to defer to parents about major decisions involving their children.”

“They normally do, yet they have carved out this one exception for gender identity transitions, and in our view that’s unconstitutional,” Berg said. “They need to defer to parents about this major decision. So the goal is ultimately for a court to say that parents have a constitutional right to make this decision, and that schools must defer to those decisions.”

The Kettle Moraine School District declined to comment on pending litigation.

Also on the program, a human resources management expert said companies already struggling with labor are going to have an even bigger challenge because of vaccine mandates.

See more from the program:
https://www.wisn.com/upfront/

Print Friendly, PDF & Email