The for-hire trucking industry added 4,500 jobs in the month of November, according to preliminary figures from the U.S. Labor Department. But the agency downwardly revised October’s employment stats to show a 200-job loss in the October — erasing gains reported by preliminary figures for the month.
November’s gains continue a strong 15-month stretch for trucking industry employment, in which 40,500 jobs have been added since last September, according to the Department of Labor. Total industry employment has only dipped twice in that run — April 2018 and October 2018.
For-hire trucking employment totaled 1.493 million in November, according to the DOL. That’s a gain of 36,300 jobs from the same month last year.
The U.S. economy as a whole added 155,000 jobs in November, and the country’s unemployment rate held at 3.7 percent.
Among prominent freight producing sectors, the construction industry added 5,000 jobs in November, according to the DOL, while the manufacturing sector added 27,000 jobs.
The transportation and warehousing sector — the umbrella group for for-hire trucking — added 25,400 jobs in November.
