Trucking Adds 3,300 Jobs; Unemployment Rate Holds at 6.7%
Trucking accounted for 3,300 of the 192,000 jobs added in March, and the U.S. unemployment rate was unchanged at 6.7%, the Labor Department reported April 4.
The job increase was below economists’ forecasts of 200,000, but employment gains for January and February were revised upward by a total of 37,000, Bloomberg News reported.
The transportation and warehousing sector, which includes trucking, added 7,900 positions in March.
The gain puts payroll growth in line with the average over the past two years and shows companies are optimistic about the outlook for demand, Bloomberg reported.
“The labor market is doing fine,” Brett Ryan, an economist with Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., told Bloomberg. “The trend before we had all these weather issues hasn’t changed much. We’re starting to see a recovery.”
Manufacturing lost 1,000 jobs, following an increase of 2,000 in February. Construction companies added 19,000 workers, after an 18,000 rise in February.
