Trucking jobs up in October

Trucking jobs went up in October, with transportation employment as a whole experiencing a modest monthly increase.

According to the latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 13,000 trucking jobs were added to the economy in October. The relatively large increase comes after the largest monthly decrease in more than a decade.

Revised numbers show a decrease of 9,500 trucking jobs in September and an increase of 5,000 jobs in August.

Year to date, trucking employment is still up by more than 62,000 jobs.

Accounting for all transportation sector jobs, employment is up more than 8,000 jobs. In September, transportation employment fell by more than 11,000 jobs, marking the first monthly decrease since the pandemic eliminated nearly 500,000 jobs in April 2020, breaking a more than two-year growth streak.

Trucking jobs experienced the largest increase, followed by couriers/messengers (6,500) and air transportation (4,200).

Warehousing/storage experienced the largest loss, with 20,000 fewer jobs.

Based on revised numbers, employment in the transportation sector fell by 11,300 in September and 1,700 in August, but increased by 17,600 in July.

For the year, transportation employment has increased by nearly 247,000 jobs.

Wages continue to increase. Average hourly and weekly earnings of all employees in the transportation and warehousing sector increased by 71 cents to $28.43. Accounting for only production and nonsupervisory employees, average weekly earnings decreased from $1,008.14 to $1,007.38.

Across all industries, more than 260,000 jobs were added to the economy. However, the unemployment rate rose to 3.7%.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the consumer price index has jumped by more than 8.2% over the last 12 months. The 0.4% monthly increase in September 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 0.6%, up 6.6% over the year. LL