The Port of Long Beach (POLB) has achieved its busiest July on record in terms of TEU volumes, despite a cooldown in consumer spending.

More specifically, dockworkers and terminal operators moved 785,843 TEU last month, which represents a slight increase of 0.13% from the previous record set in July 2021. Imports fell 1.8% to 376,175 TEU, exports decreased by 0.5% to 109,411 TEU, but empty containers handled through the major Californian port rose by 2.8% to 300,257 TEU.

“We are continuing to seek solutions to improve efficiency as a record-breaking number of containers moves through the port,” said POLB executive director, Mario Cordero.

“We hope to relieve some of the stress points by continuing to support a transition of the entire supply chain to 24/7 operations and ensuring our industry partners can track containers with our new Supply Chain Information Highway data solution,” he added.

Weaker domestic demand confirms the national economy is rapidly downshifting amid stubbornly high inflation and aggressive tightening by the Federal Reserve, according to POLB, which noted, “Consumer spending rose slightly by 1% nationally, attributed to an increase in spending on services that offset a decline in purchases of goods.”

With July’s box volumes, the Port of Long Beach has broken monthly records in six of the past seven months. The port has moved 5,793,621 TEU during the first seven months of the year, an increase of 4.6% from the same period last year.