Trucking Sheds 6,800 Jobs in March; First Decline in Almost Two Years

This story appears in the April 13 print edition of Transport Topics.

The trucking industry shed 6,800 jobs in March, marking the first decline in almost two years, the Labor Department reported.

The drop, which followed a revised 4,000 increase in February that was higher than originally reported, was the first downturn since trucking lost 800 jobs in May 2013 and the most since it lost 10,400 in March of that year.

American Trucking Associations Chief Economist Bob Costello said job numbers should be taken in context of several months of indicators.

“I don’t get too disappointed with the down numbers or overly excited with the up numbers,” Costello said.

Trucking has added about 71,000 jobs in the past two years — including 46,500 last year, an average of almost 4,000 per month. February’s increase originally was reported as a 2,600 gain.

“Let’s see what happens in April and May,” he said. “If those numbers are moving in the same direction, well then we have a problem. If they bounce back into the range we expected, then we can say March was a blip.”

Labor’s figures show 1,445,600 people were employed in trucking during February, the highest level since May 2007. Data also show it is not all that uncommon to see trucking employment slump near the end of the first quarter and then rebound. For example, after the big March 2013 drop, trucking gained back 13,800 positions the next month.

Costello also said he was not surprised by the broader job number being weak — employers added 126,000 jobs to payrolls in March, about half economists’ estimates and the lowest additions since December 2013 — after the bad weather at the start of the year. The overall unemployment rate held steady at 5.5%.

“The labor numbers generally lag, and February was not great for manufacturing, housing starts, retail or trucking,” he said.

The trucking-specific declines do not pose cause for alarm, in part because of the unique nature of the industry, which lends itself to high turnover rates, he added.

“Even if I see a [big] gain, I don’t get too excited about that either,” Costello said. “I want to see what the broader trend line is.”

Jim Meil, an economist with ACT Research Co., cited the slowdown and aftereffects at West Coast ports after a prolonged labor battle as another likely factor in fewer trucking jobs.

“Even though [port operators and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union] settled their dispute in February, some of the production shortfalls may have carried over into March,” he suggested.

“The numbers show volatility from month to month, and it could take the Labor Department another 30 or 60 days to get the number right,” Meil said. “The big picture is the first quarter was impacted by the weather and by the ILWU slowdown, and we’re just getting 2015 off to an economically slower start than we were anticipating back in November and December.”

Labor figures showed the overall transportation sector, which includes trucking, gained 9,500 jobs in March after a 10,000 jump in February.

That upturn was led by an 8,400 gain in “support activities for transportation,” a subcategory that includes such things as dispatchers, air traffic controllers, marine cargo handling and motor vehicle towing.

The overall employment slowdown was broad-based, with goods producers including factories, construction firms and industries that support oil- and gas-well drilling all cutting jobs.

Manufacturing payrolls fell by 1,000, the first decline since July 2013, and employment in the leisure and hospitality industries was the weakest since September of that year. Construction employment also fell by 1,000 jobs.

The department’s monthly unemployment rate is derived from a separate survey of households than its payrolls survey.