Washington ports reeling from global shipping slowdown. Crabbing industry faces ‘devastation’

In his 33 years as a longshoreman, Richard Austin Jr. has seen trade wars, economic booms and recessions come and go. But the president of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 19 hasn’t worked through anything like COVID-19.

“We’ve seen peaks and valleys, feasts and famines of the industry — this one is complicated because of the virus,” he said.

For Austin, it’s not so much the substantial downturn in cargo ships coming into the Port of Seattle where he works, leaving his union workers with less to do and forcing some non-union workers to head home after checking in to see if a shift is available.

It’s the uncertainty of what happens next. And he’s not alone.

The Puget Sound’s two primary cargo ports in Seattle and Tacoma are a major economic force in Washington. The $74.9 billion in goods that pass through the ports each year generate around $12.4 billion in annual business output and support close to 58,400 warehouse workers, truckers, longshoremen and the various industries that support them.

Port officials say they haven’t yet compiled their cargo and shipping numbers for February, but, anecdotally, they’re seeing a noticeable reduction in shipments, due in large part to the international slowdown on trade from China and other countries where manufacturing has ground down because of the coronavirus.

For much of 2020, Chinese factories — a key source of international trade — have been operating at around 40 percent capacity. That’s translated to massive shipping slowdowns across the globe and at West Coast ports.

The jointly-operated ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles project a 15 to 17 percent drop in year-over-year cargo volumes so far, according to the Los Angeles Times. The Washington Post reported that 145 Port of Los Angeles drivers had been laid off or sent home because there wasn’t enough freight arriving from China.

Officials in various port-related industries said they expect local numbers will reflect similar shipping declines in Washington. Like the rest of the American shipping industry, the state’s ports already were suffering slowdowns because of the trade war between China and the U.S.

That’s caused a trickle down in business throughout the Washington industries reliant on the ports.

Year-to-date, there have been around 50 missing “sailings” of ships coming in and out of Washington ports — roughly equal to what the ports might see in a typical year, said Sheri Call, executive vice president of the Olympia-based Washington Trucking Associations.

For the state’s truckers, that’s translated to hundreds of fewer loads to haul and fewer cargo containers in which to haul them. The coronavirus slowdown, they say, has extended well beyond the normal lull that follows the North American Christmas season and the annual international shipping slump after the Chinese New Year celebration.

“We’re in uncharted territory from my personal experience,” said Tom Charnley, the owner of the tCamelot, a small trucking company in the Seattle area. “Things have continued to get worse and volume has not recovered yet. My suspicion is Q1 of this year is going to be ugly and we’re probably going to lose money. We hope to bounce back in Q2. Obviously we’re not sure where the wind is going to blow in the next few weeks.”

Crabbing industry ‘devastation’

The Washington crabbing industry also is getting hammered from fewer ships heading to China.

Zed Blue, the Bellingham-based vice president of the Washington Dungeness Crab Fishermen’s Association, said the Chinese coronavirus slowdown has crippled the industry to the point some fishermen are worried they’ll have to sell their boats.

He estimated that typically 70 percent of state’s crabbing revenues comes from China, though only 30 percent of the actual catch is shipped there.

“To lose that — flick of the switch essentially — has been really devastating for a lot of fishermen and buyers as well,” Blue said. “A lot of our buyers have developed their whole program around selling to China.”

For the region’s longshoremen, they’re trying to go about their jobs as best they can, taking the same sort of precautions everyone else is to try to avoid getting sick or sickening others. The hope, they say, is they’ll ride this slowdown out just like they have all the others they’ve experienced over the years.

But Austin, the local union president on the docks in Seattle, acknowledged that the virus “has everybody on edge a little bit.”

“It’s just not a downturn in volume. It’s this unknown. This virus,” he said. “How long will it be with us? Will it spread? A lot of questions. In the meantime we’re trying to just keep going. The little volume that is there, we’ll just keep it going, keep it going in and out, you know?”

This story was originally published March 12, 2020 at 12:57 PM with the headline "Washington ports reeling from global shipping slowdown. Crabbing industry faces ‘devastation’."