Truck transportation jobs in the U.S. remained relatively steady in August, still holding solidly above a year ago but having drifted down over the last five months.
August seasonally-adjusted jobs in the truck transportation sector reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday totaled 1,523,000. That is down 900 jobs from July, but the July figure was revised upward by 4,400 jobs. With a downward June revision, the end result is that the August total is 900 jobs less than both July and May.
It is also 1,100 jobs less than March, which recorded a gain of 8,000 jobs that month. Since then, truck transportation employment levels have moved in a narrow range, coming in mostly between 1.523 million and 1.524 million jobs.
The August figure is 6,600 jobs less than August 2024.
Long-term trend is down
Three years ago, truck transportation jobs in August were 1,586,900 jobs. They peaked at 1,587,500 jobs the following January. Two years ago, when Yellow Corp. shut its doors, truck transportation jobs that month dropped about 34,000 jobs to 1,531,600. They are still below that number.
Aaron Terrazas, an independent economist who formerly worked for Convoy, made reference to the multi-year decline in truck transportation employment in an email to FreightWaves.
“After growing rapidly and nearly continuously for the prior decade, transportation industry employment has essentially been stagnant since 2022,” he said. “We are seeing small adjustments — trucking lost a few jobs in August, while the warehousing and package delivery sectors added a few jobs — but nothing trend-shifting that would signal an escape from the sector’s ongoing malaise.”
Total employment in the transportation and warehousing sector, which includes everything from airline workers to couriers, was reported at 6,747,700 jobs in August. That is the second-highest in history but the growth isn’t coming from trucking.
David Spencer, the vice president of Market Intelligence at Arrive Logistics, said the truck transportation data “(points) to a relatively stable employment environment, but this could be a temporary reprieve from the larger back and forth swings seen over the past year.”
With the trucking industry now into its third year waiting for a turnaround, Spencer saw some signs that capacity might be exiting at a faster rate that would allow a rebound in the market.
“Capacity attrition leading to more balanced, and demand-sensitive, conditions is a very real scenario that could be playing out,” Spencer wrote in an email to FreightWaves. “With the outlook for near-term demand seemingly weak, it would follow that we would expect to see more capacity bleed out of the market, leading to continued job losses in the space.”
Spencer also noted that the end of the year “typically enables a better rate environment for carriers, which could help to create more stability over the next few months.”
Warehouse numbers for July had a big overall impact
While there was little movement in truck transportation numbers, warehousing and storage saw a large upward revision for July, which when it was first published a month ago had recorded what looked like a big decline in employment in that sector.
August warehouse jobs totaled 1,829,800 jobs, up 800 jobs from a revised July figure of 1,829,000.
That July revision was huge, more than 10,000 jobs. The initial July figure was 1,818,300 jobs. But part of the upward July revision was because of a concurrent upward revision for June, which put the July data on to a higher starting point. June warehouse jobs, which are now final until the revision to be reported in February, added 5,000 jobs to the prior month’s report.
The BLS monthly employment report is the final one before Tuesday’s release of the annual update to the employment model the agency has been using in its calculations since the start of the year.
Each year, usually in August but spilling into September this year, the BLS reports changes in the numbers used in its underlying model. It projects the size of the changes that will be used as a starting point for the January 2026 employment report (to be released in early February), and it does provide the expected shifts for the key sectors in the report.
There will be a projection on the Transportation & Warehousing sector, but not for the specific subsectors in that sector such as Truck Transportation or Warehousing and Storage.
More articles by John Kingston
Louisiana scheme to obtain class A CDLs without passing tests snags six in sweeping indictment
Trimble’s Freight Marketplace snags its first shipper: Procter & Gamble
PAMT wound up in violation of a debt covenant at the end of 2Q: SEC filing
The post Small decline in truck transportation jobs in August, overall 5-month trend is stable appeared first on FreightWaves.
