The Five year $287 billion highway law known as the Fast Act expires on September 30th, reported yesterday by Transport Topics. This bill is intended to replace the 2015 highway law and continue to assist the funding of U.S. highway and transit systems.  With the prospect of a probable expiration before final enactment of the bill, a letter that included an interim plan was presented to congress by nearly 100 transportation groups. The letter proposes a yearlong extension of provisions and emergency funding totaling $69 billion for DOTs and other public transit agencies across the U.S.

DSJ Global provided a new report on market and job confidence based on a survey from global respondents from the US, EMEA and APAC regions, over a time frame ranging from February through May 2020. The report shows that 53% of respondents express a pessimistic outlook of the future economy while 22% are more optimistic. For the right job offer, 69% of US respondents would be willing to relocate to another region in the country, with the South East as the most preferred area and nearly double as compared to the next favored region. Learn more about numbers on the job market and other statistics and click on the link for this report.

It is being reported that AGM Group (UK trade buyer) acquired Bishop’s Move, a 165 year old, historic and family-owned business established in 1854. The sale moved forward during the ongoing removal business impact from government Covid-19 shutdowns. There is much optimism about maintaining Bishop’s 195 jobs in more than 20 branches across the UK.

‍

Despite the persistent global pandemic, the container rates for transit from China to U.S. West Coast continue to dramatically increase to record breaking rates, as reported by FreightWaves (American Shipper) this week. The report points to information explaining that the increase is due to the rise in retail online buying in the U.S. in recent weeks. The Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI) rate (China to U.S. West Coast) broke historic records for the past two weeks moving above $3,000 per forty-foot equivalent unit (FEU).

The U.S. commerce Department estimated that the economy contracted by a historic record breaking 32.9% in the second quarter, as reported today by Transport Topics. This pull back in the economy is primarily due to the decrease in consumer spending (34.6% decrease) associated with a frozen travel industry, a major shutdown in much of the retail industry, and tens of millions of jobs lost.

New relocation bookings were strong for the first months of 2020. However, COVID-19 government shutdowns started heavily impacting corporate global relocation bookings this year in the third week of March. New bookings continued to slide worldwide through approximately mid-April for international shipments and mid-May for U.S. domestic bookings.
‍
During this crisis, international and domestic bookings generally dropped off by 30 to 55 percent across all industry segments in the mid-April to mid-May timeframe.  Is there good news? Yes, international bookings have been improving week over week since mid-April and U.S. domestic bookings started an upward trend in the last two weeks as well.

Unless more unforeseen events occur, it appears that the COVID-19 booking bottom has passed, creating a more optimistic business outlook for the weeks and months ahead in 2020.