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News Alert: Trucking jobs in US fall month-over-month

Months of significant increases reversed; fewer jobs reported for November and December in revised figures

John Kingston
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Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves

In a stunning development in the midst of a strong trucking market, the number of jobs in the trucking sector in the U.S. fell in January from December, according to data released Friday morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Not only that, but revisions for December and November mean that there were fewer people working in the sector during those months than was originally estimated by BLS.

According to the BLS seasonally adjusted data, trucking jobs in the U.S. in January totaled 1,475,400. That was down from the 1,478,300 jobs recorded for December.

But the December number — which is still listed as preliminary — was cut from the preliminary number issued last month of 1,484,300 jobs in trucking. 


Meanwhile, the November figure went “final” with this latest BLS report. The first two months of a report are preliminary before a final number is published. When the BLS report was issued last month, it had trucking jobs in November, standing at 1,477,000 jobs. But with the latest report, the final figure for November is 1,472,800. 

Ironically, the final November figure is closer to what was first reported for that month two months ago. When BLS first reported November employment figures, in early December, the November number for trucking jobs was 1,474,400. 

The last time the seasonally adjusted trucking jobs recorded a decrease was from March to April of 2020, just as the pandemic was taking hold. 

According to the data for not seasonally adjusted jobs, the drop-off in the trucking sector was even steeper. The BLS reported 1,449,400 not seasonally adjusted trucking jobs last month, down from 1,477,300 jobs a month earlier. 


The latest report also showed a reversal in the warehousing and storage sector. The number of jobs there fell to 1,425,100 jobs from 1,442,500 jobs in December. That figure for January is now less than November, where the final figure shows the number of jobs at 1,434,700 seasonally adjusted positions.

Rail jobs in January held their own at 144,800, flat from the prior month.

FreightWaves will be following this story.

More articles by John Kingston

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BLS’ Monaco makes clear her views on driver shortage: there is none

Truck transportation jobs grow but still below year-ago levels


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.