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Breaking News: Trucking jobs rise by 10,000 in August

Truck transportation jobs rose by a solid 10,000 in August on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to data released Friday morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

The data also showed a slight adjustment upward in the number of truck transportation jobs in July.

The BLS reported seasonally adjusted truck transportation jobs in August totaled 1,449,500. That was up an even 10,000 from the July number of 1,439,500.

The July figure — which remains preliminary — was adjusted up by 900 jobs from what was released last month. The first number for July was reported as 1,438,600 jobs.


The number of not-seasonally adjusted jobs in the truck transportation sector rose to 1,466,800 from 1,458,000. However, most economists look at seasonally adjusted figures as a better barometer of labor market trends.

Seasonally adjusted rail jobs actually ticked upward, a reversal from their fairly relentless decline that goes back before the pandemic. They were reported at 145,400 jobs, up 100 jobs.

Seasonally adjusted truck transportation jobs are now up roughly 17,000 from May.  

FreightWaves will continue to follow this story today. 


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John Kingston

John has an almost 40-year career covering commodities, most of the time at S&P Global Platts. He created the Dated Brent benchmark, now the world’s most important crude oil marker. He was Director of Oil, Director of News, the editor in chief of Platts Oilgram News and the “talking head” for Platts on numerous media outlets, including CNBC, Fox Business and Canada’s BNN. He covered metals before joining Platts and then spent a year running Platts’ metals business as well. He was awarded the International Association of Energy Economics Award for Excellence in Written Journalism in 2015. In 2010, he won two Corporate Achievement Awards from McGraw-Hill, an extremely rare accomplishment, one for steering coverage of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and the other for the launch of a public affairs television show, Platts Energy Week.