Supply-chain pressure has eased substantially from the extremes recorded during the pandemic, but the risks facing companies remain varied: transport costs, supplier failures, extreme weather, cyber-attacks and shifting consumer demand can all interrupt the flow of goods.
The New York Federal Reserve’s Global Supply Chain Pressure Index offers one way to track those strains. It combines measures including transport costs and delivery times, expressing the result as standard d...
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eviations from its historical average. A reading near zero suggests conditions close to normal; the index surged to 4.43 in December 2021, before falling to 1.06 in August 2026. The measure captures broad movements, rather than the experience of every company, sector or shipping route.
The scale of the system helps explain why even localised problems can have wide effects. US business logistics costs reached $2.4 trillion, equal to 7.8 per cent of gross domestic product, according to the figures cited in ShipLilly’s supply-chain statistics review. Transport accounted for 61.8 per cent of that bill, while inventory carrying costs represented 30.4 per cent.
Trucking remains central to the movement of goods in the United States. The American Trucking Associations’ current industry report says trucks carried 11.46 billion tons of freight in 2025, up from 11.27 billion tons a year earlier. The sector generated $936.4 billion in revenue and supported 8.5 million industry-related jobs, including 3.45 million professional drivers. Its structure is highly fragmented: 91.1 per cent of carriers operated ten or fewer trucks.
Disruption is not an occasional exception for many organisations. The Business Continuity Institute found that almost four in five surveyed organisations had experienced a supply-chain interruption in the preceding year, with most reporting between one and ten incidents. Yet visibility beyond direct suppliers remains limited: 17.1 per cent of respondents said they mapped critical suppliers to tier four or deeper. The BCI also reported greater uptake of insurance against major supply-chain disruption, with 46.7 per cent covered, compared with 37.4 per cent in 2023.
Resilinc, a supply-chain monitoring company, recorded a nearly 40 per cent increase in disruption activity during 2024, including a 214 per cent rise in flood alerts. These figures reflect alerts identified through its platform; an alert does not necessarily mean a confirmed interruption or a loss for an individual business. Still, the trend underscores the growing attention paid to weather-related threats alongside supplier and operational risks.
Online retail adds another source of pressure on transport, stock management and warehouse capacity. The US Census Bureau estimated e-commerce sales at $340.2 billion in the second quarter of 2026, a 3.8 per cent increase on the previous quarter. Total retail sales were estimated at $1,986.5 billion. The bureau notes that estimates can be revised, making the release date important when comparing figures over time.
Technology is increasingly presented as a means of improving planning and resilience, but adoption does not necessarily mean that companies have redesigned their operations around it. The statistics compiled by ShipLilly point to a gap between expectations for artificial intelligence and the number of organisations with a formal strategy. At the same time, the review cites US labour projections showing strong anticipated growth in logistics work. Its figures put projected employment growth for logisticians at 18 per cent between 2025 and 2035, with a median annual wage of $82,320 in May 2025.
Those numbers should be read with care because federal occupational estimates are tied to specific reference periods. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ currently available handbook page gives a median wage of $80,880 for May 2024 and projects 17 per cent employment growth from 2024 to 2034. The differing figures reflect different reporting periods, rather than a direct contradiction.
Taken together, the data suggest that supply chains are operating under less extraordinary pressure than at the 2021 peak, but remain exposed to frequent shocks. For businesses, the challenge is not simply moving goods efficiently: it is knowing where vulnerabilities lie, how quickly disruption can be detected, and whether alternative suppliers, transport routes and systems are ready when conditions change.
Source: Noah Wire Services
