Trucking gains 2,300 jobs in July, U.S. hiring remains strong

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The for-hire trucking industry added 2,300 jobs in July on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the monthly employment report released Aug. 1 by the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Trucking’s job gains in May and June also have been upwardly revised, with May gaining an additional 500 jobs than previously reported and June added 1,400.

The U.S. economy as a whole in July added 209,000 non-farm jobs, BLS reports, but the national unemployment rate rose a tenth of a percent to 6.2 percent. Last month’s 6.1 percent was the lowest the unemployment rate had been since September 2008. However, the U.S. economy has now seen six straight months of strong job gains.

For-hire trucking now has 1.4087 million payroll jobs, according to BLS, up 29,100 (2.1 percent) from last July. It’s also up 179,000 jobs (14.5 percent) from March 2010’s bottom in the most recent recession.

However, it remains 52,700 jobs (3.6 percent) below January 2007’s peak.

Total transportation and warehousing employment grew by 7,900 jobs, following the 16,600 added last month. Also in July, manufacturing added 28,000 jobs and construction added 22,000.

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.