Trucking Slowing with Economy, Fed Says
Shipping demand and volumes continued to fall as the U.S. economy further deteriorated at the start of this year, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday.
Several Fed districts reported falling demand caused rounds of layoffs at trucking and rail transportation companies, the Fed said in its second Beige Book report of 2009, which it issues eight times a year.
A national trucking firm in the Richmond district laid off employees and cut others’ wages “to keep in line with competition,” the report said.
In Atlanta, transportation contacts reported that January and early February were very weak, the Fed said, adding that trucking companies serving the retail and manufacturing industries have been hit especially hard by those industries’ troubles.
The report, prepared by the St. Louis Fed, was based on information collected from Jan. 6 through Feb. 23.
