Trucking job growth slows down in August

Trucking jobs increased slightly in August, while all transportation jobs experienced the smallest increase since March.

According to the latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 800 trucking jobs were added to the economy in August. That marks the slowest month since March when nearly 3,000 jobs in trucking were lost.

Revised numbers reveal a minor drop in trucking jobs compared to originally reported numbers in June (minus 800) and July (minus 300). Year to date, trucking employment is up by more than 56,000 jobs.

Accounting for all transportation sector jobs, employment is up nearly 5,000 jobs. That is the slowest month of growth since March, when transportation sector employment grew by less than 4,000 jobs.

Revised numbers show about 5,000 fewer jobs than originally reported in June. However, the transportation sector is maintaining a two-year growth streak that began in May 2020.

Couriers and messengers employment experienced the largest growth with more than 5,000 more jobs, followed by support activities for transportation (4,400 jobs) and air transportation (2,200).

However, those gains were weighed down by a large drop in couriers/messengers employment with a decrease of more than 6,000 jobs. Transit/ground passenger transport employment dropped by 2,500 jobs.

For the year, transportation employment has increased by more than 263,000 jobs.

Wages continue to increase, albeit slightly. Average hourly and weekly earnings of all employees in the transportation and warehousing sector increased by 7 cents to $28.10. Accounting for only production and nonsupervisory employees, average weekly earnings increased from $988.85 to $993.77.

Across all industries, more than 300,000 jobs were added to the economy. However, the unemployment rate rose to 3.7% from 3.5%.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Consumer Price Index has jumped by 8.5% over the last 12 months. The 1.3% monthly increase in July was broad-based, with the indexes for shelter, gasoline, and food being the largest contributors. The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.3% in July. LL