Disruptions to Global Supply Networks

The COVID-19 pandemic delivered the most severe simultaneous shock to global supply chains in decades. Chinese authorities imposed a lockdown on the city of Wuhan on 23 January 2020, temporarily halting factory output across a manufacturing hub that fed components into supply chains worldwide, and as the virus spread globally through 2020, alternating waves of factory shutdowns, shifting consumer demand toward physical goods over services, and disrupted labor availability at ports left shipping containers badly misallocated, with empty containers piling up in some regions while others faced acute shortages, driving spot ocean freight rates on major trans-Pacific routes to several times their pre-pandemic levels by 2021.