A shortage of parts and labor has sent the prices of truck trailers through the roof.
Truck trailer prices jumped 3.1 percent in January, data from the Department of Labor showed Tuesday. That followed a 3.8 percent increase in December. Compared with 12-months ago, trailer prices are up 29.6 percent, by far the biggest one-year jump in records going back to 1980.
The shortage of trailers is complicating efforts by Biden administration officials and business leaders to unsnarl supply chains.
The Wall Street Journal reported in December that trailer manufacturing has contracted. Manufacturers produced 25 percent more dry vans—the most common type of semitrailers used to haul goods—in 2019 than they are making now despite extremely high demand. Production has slowed because of shortages of many of the materials used to make trailers.
The effects are rippling through the economy, making it much more expensive to move goods across the country. The Department of Labor’s index of the price of transportation of freight by truck rose 1.3 percent in January and is up 18.3 percent from a year ago. Rail freight prices are up nine percent and air freight prices are up 10.8 percent.
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