In the April data report released on Friday, the seasonally adjusted total number of jobs in the truck transportation sector increased by 3,000 to reach 1.6125 million.
This growth means that, with the exception of four months of job declines, the trucking industry has maintained a continuous growth trend for 35 months since April 2020. Specifically, data on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website shows that prior to March 2020, the proportion of months with job losses in the trucking industry was 21.4% out of 121 months. Between May 2020 and April 2023, the percentage of months reporting job declines in truck transportation was 11.4% of the total.
The market intelligence vice president of Arrive Logistics believes that the strength of employment growth in the trucking industry continues to exceed expectations.
In addition to the almost monthly increase in jobs in the trucking sector, the report also notes that the warehousing sector saw job growth for the first time since June 2022.
Warehouse and storage jobs increased from 1.9219 million to 1.9259 million. Aaron Terrazas, chief economist at Glassdoor who previously worked at Conway, said the warehouse numbers caught his eye.
In an email to the media, Terrazas said that while it is natural for trucking companies to increase wages at this stage of the business cycle, the fact that the warehousing sector has seen growth after a year of losses suggests that we may have reached a trough in the e-commerce market.
The overall employment report was seen as strong by the industry, with 253,000 jobs added in April after an increase of 165,000 jobs in March. However, Terrazas expressed concern about the growth, saying, "Although the Fed has signaled a pause in interest rate hikes, the added jobs increase the chance of further rate hikes in the coming months."
Other highlights of the report include:
The non-seasonally adjusted truck transportation job numbers showed a larger increase than the seasonally adjusted numbers. Total jobs increased by 12,600 to reach 1.5949 million. The numbers for February and March were revised downward, but even after those revisions, the April total was 14,900 more jobs than the revised February figure.
The Department of Labor's data has a one-month lag for specific sub-industries of truck transportation. In the long-haul trucking category, although there was a decline from December to January, the data from January to March remained relatively high at around 550,000, indicating that capacity exits are not as high as predicted.
Railroad jobs, after a significant increase in the past few months, have stabilized after seasonal adjustments and non-seasonal adjustments. The April figure was 149,900 jobs, up 100 from March and up 200 from the revised February figure. The non-seasonally adjusted number was not much different from this.
Courier jobs are on an upward trend. The industry had 118,900 jobs in April, lower than the 116,800 jobs in March but higher than the 111,400 jobs in February. However, the trend prior to this had been declining, so the April 2023 job total was still below the record of 131,800 jobs in April of the previous year.