Second straight month of significant employment gains for trucking industry

For the 14th consecutive month, transportation jobs overall scored gains in March. The transport sector netted nearly 10,000 jobs to the economy. Trucking jobs experienced its highest monthly increase in nearly three years for the second straight month.

The truck transportation subsector experienced an increase of 6,700 jobs in March after the industry gained 6,000 in February and 5,800 in January. This marks the highest monthly employment increase since May 2015, when nearly more than 8,000 trucking jobs were added. Numbers for March and February are preliminary and are likely to change in the coming months.

Trucking experienced the largest increase for the second consecutive month followed by couriers and messengers at 5,800 additional jobs. “Support activities for transportation” experienced the largest loss within the transportation sector, with 2,600 fewer jobs in the marketplace in March.

In 2017, the transportation and warehousing sector had a net gain of more than 3 million 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 more than 25,000 jobs in the sector added to the economy. For the year, the trucking subsector had a net gain of 9,400 jobs in 2017.

Average hourly earnings for the transportation and warehousing sector were $24.35 for March – an 11-cent increase from February and up 70 cents from March 2017. Hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees experienced an increase of five cents to $21.67 from the previous month and a 55-cent increase year to year. Average hourly earnings for private, nonfarm payrolls across all industries were $26.82, a 7-cent increase from the previous month. Compared with a year ago, average earnings have gone up by 2.7 percent, or 71 cents.

According to the report, the unemployment rate for transportation and material-moving occupations decreased significantly to 5.2 percent, compared with 6.2 percent in March 2017, and down from 6.1 percent in February. The overall unemployment rate remained stagnant at 4.1 percent for the sixth consecutive month. The number of long-term unemployed was dropped slightly to 1.3 million, accounting for 20 percent of the unemployed.