Trucking employment falls for 5th month

For-hire trucking employment fell sharply in June, and has slipped for five consecutive months since hitting an all-time high in January.

Trucking lost 6,300 jobs last month, and that follows downward adjustments to the April and May numbers, according to the latest jobs report from the U.S. Dept. of Labor. Trucking has lost 12,600 jobs since the January record, and that’s 9,600 fewer jobs than in June last year.

This comes as the overall U.S. economy posted a significantly higher-than-expected jobs total, adding 287,000—a substantial improvement from May when just 38,000 jobs were added. The national unemployment rate, however, rose to 4.9%, but that’s still running at levels  last recorded in 2008.

The June decline puts the for-hire trucking total at 1.453 million, still 400 more jobs than the pre-recession high in January 2007. And there were 219,800 (17.8%) more trucking jobs in May than were reported in March 2010, the low point in the economic downturn.

Collectively the transportation and warehousing sector lost 9,400 jobs in May, as job losses in trucking and transit and ground passenger transportation (-6,000) were partially offset by the gain of 4,700 jobs in warehousing and storage.

Gains in the broader economy occurred in leisure and hospitality (59,000), health care and social assistance (58,000), and retail trade (30,000). Employment also rose in telecommunications (+28,000), largely reflecting the return of workers from a strike, the government report notes.

Employment in other major industries, including construction, manufacturing, wholesale  trade, and government showed little or no change in June.

Employment in mining continued to trend down in June (-6,000). Since reaching a peak in September 2014, mining has lost 211,000 jobs.