Employment in trucking subsector kicks off 2018 with more jobs

February 5, 2018

Tyson Fisher

|

For the 12th consecutive month, transportation jobs overall scored gains in January. The transport sector netted 11,100 jobs to the economy. Trucking jobs also went up after a small decrease in December.

The truck transportation subsector experienced an increase of 2,200 jobs in January after the industry lost 600 in December and gained 1,800 in November.

Warehousing and storage experienced the largest increase, with 5,300 more jobs, followed by couriers and messengers at 4,900. Transit and ground passenger transportation experienced the largest loss with 2,500 fewer jobs, trailed by scenic and sightseeing transportation’s loss of 1,200. Only half of subsectors experienced gains, enough to outweigh the losses by a significant margin.

In 2017, the transportation and warehousing sector had a net gain of more than 74,000 jobs. In every month except January there was a job increase compared to the previous month. September accounted for the largest one-month increase, with nearly 22,000 jobs in the sector added to the economy. For the year, the trucking subsector had a net gain of 10,400 jobs in 2017.

Average hourly earnings for the transportation and warehousing sector were $24.29 for January – a 5-cent increase from December and up 75 cents from January 2017. Hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees experienced an increase of 9 cents to $21.65 from the previous month and a 71-cent increase year to year. Average hourly earnings for private, nonfarm payrolls across all industries were $26.74, a 9-cent increase from the previous month. Compared with a year ago, average earnings have gone up by 2.9 percent, or 75 cents.

According to the report, the unemployment rate for transportation and material-moving occupations decreased to 6.8 percent, compared with 7 percent in January 2017, but went up significantly from 5.1 percent in December. The overall unemployment rate remained stagnant at 4.1 percent for the fourth consecutive month. The number of long-term unemployed dropped slightly to 1.4 million, accounting for 21.5 percent of the unemployed.