Supply Chain by the Numbers
   
 

-February. 4, 2010
   
 

This Week’s Supply Chain by the Numbers Feb. 4, 2010

   
 

Inventory Growth Drives GDP; Hershey's Finds Supply Chain "Candy"; Scary Rise in Truckload Trailers Taken Last Year; Union Label Peels Back in 2009

   
 
 
 

3.4%

The percent of the strong US Gross Domestic Product (GPD) growth of 5.7% in the fourth quarter that was attributable to businesses rebuilding inventory levels. That’s 60% of the total economic increase in the quarter.

 
 
 



 

$160 million

The cumulative savings through Q4 2009 from Hershey’s “global supply chain transformation” program first announced in 2007 and just about concluded. Total costs to date have been about $544 million, mostly from shutting down manufacturing plants, but those are done and cost savings are really starting to kick in, the company said this week.
 
 
12%

The rise in trucking cargo theft incidents in the US during 2009 versus 2008, according to a new report from FreightWatch. Dollars of cargo theft were up even more, rising an astounding 67% year over year.
 
 
 
 
7.2%

The level of private sector unionized employees in 2009, according to the US labor department, down from 7.6% in 2008, as more unionized industries (especially construction) lost greater numbers of jobs in the recession than less unionized ones. That’s the lowest level of private sector unionization since they started tracking this in the early 1980s – and labor leaders fear absent “card check” the union jobs won’t come back.
 
 
 
 
 
 
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