Jobs in the for-hire trucking industry slipped by 800 in August on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the monthly employment report released Sep. 5 by the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
And the August decline is on top of the slight downward revision of trucking jobs reported in July: BLS cut that number by 300.
The U.S. economy as a whole in August added 142,00 non-farm jobs, BLS reports, but the national unemployment rate was little changed at 6.1 percent. Still, this summer’s unemployment number has hovered in a range lower than the economy has seen since September 2008.
For-hire trucking now has 1.4076 million payroll jobs, according to BLS, up 26,900 (2 percent) from last August. It’s also up 173,600 jobs (14.1 percent) from March 2010’s bottom in the most recent recession.
However, it remains 45,800 jobs (3.2 percent) below January 2007’s peak.
Total transportation and warehousing employment grew by 1,200 jobs. Also in August, construction added 20,000 jobs but manufacturing, after adding 28,000 in July, added no new jobs.
The BLS numbers for trucking reflect all payroll employment in for-hire trucking, but they don’t include trucking-related jobs in other industries, such as a truck driver for a private fleet. Nor do the numbers reflect the total amount of hiring since they only reflect the number of employees paid during a specified payroll period during the month.
