With the overall jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing a surprisingly big jump in employment, truck transportation participated in that rebound.
The monthly report showed truck transportation employment rising 4,800 jobs to 1,470,300. It’s the highest level of jobs in the sector since October.
But with employment since then mostly trending down each month, the number of jobs in the sector is still about 10,000 jobs less than it was a year ago.
“A single month trend does not in itself indicate that conditions are beginning to shift,” David Spencer, vice president of market intelligence at Arrive Logistics, said in a comment supplied to FreightWaves.
He cited data for April, when a big jump of more than 5,000 truck transportation jobs was followed by two months of declines that mostly offset the April surge.
“However, recent stability in truckload spot rate volatility, including a muted response to the Labor Day holiday, is context that shouldn’t be ignored,” Spencer said.
If the growth in employment has legs, Spencer said, that would “signal a shift in carrier priorities from replacing aging equipment and driver benefits and wages.”
Truckload and LTL numbers
One piece of data that is showing strength in the sector is the market for long-distance truckload drivers. That data lags the overall truck transportation numbers by a month.
The latest report, for July, shows employment in that subsector at 501,400 jobs. That is an increase of almost 5,000 jobs since January.
But like truck transportation jobs overall, it’s down from a year earlier, when it stood at 505,300 jobs. And it’s way down from a recent peak of 553,600 jobs in October 2022.
Growth in LTL drivers has been slower. It was up just 100 jobs between June and July, to 247,100 jobs, and was still 2,000 jobs less than a year earlier. LTL jobs’ recent peak was 282,200 jobs in June 2022.
Warehouse jobs took their second consecutive decline and are now 32,000 jobs less than they were a year ago.
With a decline of 2,600 jobs between July and August, warehouse jobs stood at 1,837,400 jobs. A year ago, it was at 1,869,400 jobs.
The contrast with the all-time peak is startling: 1,939,300 jobs in March 2022.
The broader numbers
Aaron Terrazas, an independent economist with a long history in transportation, did not find any undetected softness in the overall labor report, especially following a report a month ago that saw a decline of 23,000 jobs.
But that was followed by an upward revision in the latest release for July and June.
“July’s initially-reported surprise decline in payrolls now looks like a respectable gain well within the range of breakeven estimates,” Terrazas said in an email to FreightWaves. “The July dip was driven by local government/education — that was reversed. Late summer is a noisy time for public education payrolls. The unemployment rate was stable and participation increased.”
Numbers from Superior Payroll
The beginning of the month is also the time that Superior Trucking Payroll Service releases its data on certain economic conditions in trucking, drawn from the data it processes in paying thousands of drivers.
Its drive pay index slipped back in August to 158.08, down from 161.31 a month earlier. But it is still well above a year ago, when it was at 148.88.
Superior’s measurement of turnover was 9.37% for August. It is down from double digits that Superior measured between September and March.
Rail jobs rose 900 from an upward adjusted number in July. Employment was 150,400 jobs, up from 149,500 jobs, a fairly big gain for the sector where change is measured slowly. But it is still down from 154,100 jobs a month ago, even as rail traffic has increased.
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