Truck transportation jobs declined in June by a relatively small amount, and the 12-month cycle of changes shows an industry that is employing about the same number of people it did a year ago.
With the ups and downs of the past year, the end result is that according to the monthly employment report released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were still 2,700 more jobs in truck transportation in June 2025 than there were a year ago, which is an increase of just 0.17%.
That number–2,700–also was the size of the decline in jobs between a revised figure for May and June’s level of employment.
The May revision was 1,800 jobs lower than originally reported a month ago. The April report–which is now final until being subject to annual revision in the BLS model that will be released in February–was 1,000 jobs fewer than it was in last month’s report.
The monthly totals on truck transportation jobs in the latest report: April’s number was 1,525,300 jobs, 1,523,600 in May and 1,520,900 in June.
Starting with the July 2024 jobs report, the month-to-month changes have featured separate non-sequential increases of 3,300, 8,000 and 1,200 jobs, and declines of 1,600, 200, 600, 1,300, 1,000, 3,000, 1,700, wrapping up with the June decline of 2,700 jobs.
Big revisions in warehouses
Warehousing and storage jobs in June, which have been volatile of late, ticked slightly higher on a month-to-month basis. But revisions from the prior two months reflected strong gains in hiring.
Warehousing and storage jobs gained 2,300 to 1,836,700 jobs in May.
It was what the BLS said about May and April that was more notable. The May figure had a strong upward revision by 7,300 jobs, rising to 1,834,300 jobs. That came after an April revision that brought the final April number to 1,837,000, up from 1,832,100 jobs, a gain of 4,900 jobs.
Employment in that sector is still less than a year ago. Warehouse employment in June 2024 was 1,851,900 jobs.
Mazen Danaf, an economist with Uber Freight, dove into the subsector numbers that are on a one-month lag. He said they reveal a “surprising counter-trend”: long-distance truckload employment was up by 3,700 jobs.
“This increase was unexpected given the ongoing soft market and likely indicates carriers’ early, though ultimately unrealized, optimism for tightening conditions,” Danaf said in an email to FreightWaves. “It remains to be seen if this headcount increase will last, especially as spot rates have recently turned negative year-over-year for the first time in months.”
Terrazas on the overall numbers
Aaron Terrazas, an independent economist, described the lost number of jobs in trucking as “nothing beyond the range of normal monthly volatility.”
Terrazas also looked at the broader report that beat consensus on total hiring (up 147,000 jobs versus 110,000 jobs), a stable unemployment rate and “backward revisions…all to the upside this month.”
“We are digesting higher interest rates, we are digesting tariffs,” Terrazas said in an email to FreightWaves. “If that’s the case and we’re seeing another round of apocalypse averted rather than apocalypse delayed, noise earlier this week about the prospect for lower interest rates from the Federal Reserve appears premature.”
In other highlights from the report:
- Pay keeps rising. The average hourly wage for production and nonsupervisory employees in the truck transportation sector reached $31.11 in May. That data is always on a one-month lag. It’s the first time it has ever been more than $31/hour. It has now risen four consecutive months, and is now up almost 3.9% in the last year. By contrast, production and nonsupervisory wages in the warehouse sector are up 3.3% in the last year.
- There are a lot more jobs as couriers than there were a year ago. June employment in that sector was 1,148,300 jobs. A year ago it was 1,097,900 jobs, for a gain of 4.6%.
- Despite all the signs of strong rail markets, employment is down from a year ago. Jobs in rail in June 2024 were 156,600 jobs; in June 2025 they were 153,900 jobs, up 100 jobs from a month ago. They are down 1,000 jobs since the end of 2024.
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