LOS ANGELES — After more than a year of unprecedented volume and congestion — at the Port of Los Angeles, imports to the nation’s busiest port have started to slow. November cargo volumes were down 21% compared with a year earlier and 24% lower than the five-year average.

“An early peak season and a shift to other ports due to West Coast labor talks have had big impacts, and now we’re seeing a nationwide slowing of imports,” Port of LA Executive Director Gene Seroka said during Wednesday’s December cargo briefing. 

Imports were down 24% in November compared with a year ago, and exports out of China fell almost 9% — the biggest drop since February of 2020 when COVID lockdowns brought production to a crawl, Seroka said. 

“We’re seeing canceled or blank sailings,” he added, noting that 13 ships were canceled in November. He anticipates 11 sailings will be canceled in December. 

“We haven’t seen numbers like those since the start of the pandemic,” Seroka said. 

Empty containers were also down 26%, while exports increased 9%. Still, Seroka anticipates the full year coming in at just under 10 million shipping containers, making it the second-best year in the port’s 115-year history, outpaced only by 2021.

He said the port is focused on three key areas heading into 2023: finishing the port’s labor contract between dockworkers and their employers by early next year, convincing shippers to continue using the Port of LA instead of rerouting to other U.S. ports and leveraging data to decrease wait times and make every ship, train and truck operate more efficiently. 

“Contract, cargo, commitment,” Seroka said. “Once we address all of that, we can move the needle.”