.png)
By Javaughn Keyes
Shipping companies taking goods to Jamaica from the United States say they are facing higher costs.
President and CEO of Dennis Shipping, Dennis Hawthorne, says this is primarily linked to increased commodity costs and wage adjustments in North America.
"The price of trucking, the steam ship line has incurred a fuel charge based on the fuel charge and how the fuel goes up and it impacts us a lot also because we have to charge a little bit more but we cannot pass that on to our customers. So most of the time we have to absorb it."
"And for example...New York minimum wage was like $8.50 per hour. Recently they have increased it twice. It's like $15 an hour that we have to pay, and we can't pay our staff $15 an hour, so we have to increase it," he admitted.
Fuel prices have faced uncertainty, especially in the last year, as the Isreal-Hamas war in the Middle East and the Ukraine-Russia war, which started last February, pose threats to the production and supply of fuel.
Mr. Hawthorne said the issue is compounded by inflation, but he hopes the prices will come down so this can be passed on to consumers.
All feeds
