While some US ports are having difficulties with their operations, SC Ports set new record high volume of containers with no delays

South Carolina – The pandemic brought a lot of issues for ports around the world since the supply and demand for some goods were fluctuating all the time.

In United States, many ports across the country were seeing increase in number of containers during the past year causing a lot of delays at the ports and shortage of some goods in stores.

However, the ports in Charleston are doing well for all this time and they managed to keep up with the increased operations during the pandemic.

According to the latest data, Charleston ports set a new record high number of processed containers in the ports in 2020, but they didn’t face delays just like many other ports in United States.

“Americans were buying a lot of goods at the time and we will do close to 1.5 million containers this year which is really impressive for us and over a 100 million operating cash flow,” CEO Jim Newsome said.

The management managed to expand their capacity with better organizing the work at the ports and they are now about to hire new workers resulting with no delays in getting goods into the port and out throughout the state.

Newsome added that a major role played the investments in the ports in the last few decades too.

“We built a lot of incredibly good infrastructure to be ready for that … We opened a new terminal. We retro fitted our existing terminal,” Newsome said.

He added that they are hiring 150 additional workers this year and more than 500 people showed at the job fair they organized.

“They are good paid jobs. Over 30 dollars an hour. Interesting work. You are part of a global supply chain and you don’t have to go to college to do it,” he said.

New people are needed at the ports since the operations are expected to rise in the next months too.

One major issue that the ports are facing is the truck driver’s issue. The well-known issue is affecting the ports too and Newsome said that ports should be working in supporting truck drivers in order to keep the things going smoothly.

“People can make a good living in local drayage. Meaning driving to and from the rails or whatever. But they want to be respected and we have treated the drivers in that industry terrible,” he said.

On Monday, Newsome also said he will be retiring in June of 2022. In July, Barbara Melvin will take his place.