No sign of U.S. recession in freight demand, CEO of shipping giant Maersk says

Shipping giant Maersk, considered a barometer for global trade, is not seeing signs of a U.S. recession as freight demand remains robust, the company's chief executive said Wednesday.

"We've seen in the last couple of years, actually, [the shipping container] market remaining surprisingly resilient to all the fear of recessions that there has been," Vincent Clerc told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" Wednesday, adding that container demand was generally a good indicator of underlying macroeconomic strength.

U.S. inventories — goods being stored before delivery or processing — "are higher than they were at the beginning of the year, but they are not at a level that is worrisome or that seems to indicate a significant slowdown right in the offing," Clerc said, despite noting some unpredictability in numbers for companies replenishing stocks.

"We look also at purchase orders from a lot of retailers and consumer brands that need to import into the U.S. for the coming month of demand, and it seems still to be pretty robust ... at least the data and the indicators that we're having seem to point toward still some good level of confidence that the current consumption levels in the U.S. will continue."

The last week has seen a sudden escalation in worries about a recession in the world's biggest economy, the U.S., following a set of weaker-than-expected jobs data which has divided economists and market participants.

U.S. retail trade inventories — a measure of unwanted build — in May were up 5.33% from a year ago at $793.86 billion, according to the most recent release from the U.S. Census Bureau.

A report released by leasing platform Container xChange on Wednesday said indicators suggest inventories are higher than demand, meaning a less