We hope you had a great Labor Day holiday and weekend! Here is our recap for this week from Argon & Co North America:

Labor Day and labor in the supply chain industry

  • This year, Dan Gilmore, Editor with Supply Chain Digest has a piece on labor (has been doing them close to Labor Day since 2011) in the U.S. and statistics are showing a decrease in strikes and an increase in jobs and salaries. His facts were:
    • The percent of total US workers that are union members held steady in 2017 according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unionization in the private sector was up.
    • There has been a steady non-supervisory warehouse jobs, with a small amount of manufacturing jobs.
    • In terms of wages, average non-supervisory pay for warehouse workers was $17.79 in June, up 5% versus 2017 after an incredibly sharp 11.2% jump last year. That’s also about 20% less than average manufacturing rate – but the gap is shrinking. It was 23% in 2016. Pay for warehouse workers was at $15.15 in June 2008, meaning DC wages have risen only 17.4% over the past decade.

NYC and freight distribution

  • New York City is overhauling their freight distribution through modernization for their maritime and rail systems. With their $100-million plan they are hoping to add 5,000 jobs for residents. As NYC grows with on demand deliveries of everything from clothes to groceries to consumers so does the need for a modern infrastructure. Felecia Stratton, with Inbound Logistics reports“This challenge is particularly acute in the last mile of distribution, when trucks deliver goods from port facilities and central warehouses, often located in neighboring states such as New Jersey, over city streets and arteries.” As an aside about port revitalization, over the last several years many changes have been made to Georgia’s ports, with an inlet opening just over a week ago.

Sustainable warehouse design for modern times

  • Here is a piece from The Atlanta Business Chronicle’s on designing warehouses for today’s businesses, especially because of the eCommerce explosion over the last decade. The need for on-demand delivery from warehouse to consumers pushes the need for warehouses to not only run differently but are set up differently in design to encourage efficiency (and sustainability) with today’s fulfillment challenges. Jody Luke, Business Development Director at The Korte Company published this piece in April and it’s a good, quick read on considerations of warehouse design in these times.

As of September 8, 2020, Crimson & Co (formerly The Progress Group/TPG) has rebranded as Argon & Co following the successful merger with Argon Consulting in April 2018. 

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