Trucking Adds 2,400 Jobs in January; Unemployment Rises to 5.7%
The trucking industry added 2,400 jobs in January as the unemployment rate increased slightly to 5.7%, the Labor Department reported Feb. 6.
The transportation and warehousing sector, which includes trucking, lost 8,600 positions as the courier and messenger subsector lost 14,100 jobs.
The 257,000 overall increase in employment followed a 329,000 rise the prior month that was more than previously estimated, Bloomberg News reported.
The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 228,000 increase. The unemployment rate climbed as the improving job market lured more Americans into the labor force, Bloomberg reported.
Construction added 39,000 workers, and factories increased payrolls by 22,000.
“We’re at a phase of the cycle where the labor market is shoring up household finances and that generates more demand, and it becomes a very self-reinforcing cycle in a positive way,” Aneta Markowska, chief U.S. economist at Societe Generale in New York, told Bloomberg before the report.
Employment in November was revised up to a 423,000 gain, the most since May 2010. Private payrolls, which exclude government agencies, soared 414,000 that month, the biggest advance since September 1997, according to Bloomberg.
