Truck transportation jobs took a significant dip in May, according to the monthly employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and now are at the level where they were in November.
Seasonally adjusted jobs fell by 5,400 from April, to 1,550,100, according to the BLS. That is exactly the same as in November.
The decline is the third-largest since jobs began rising in 2020 after the tremendous drop first reported in April 2020. But the biggest decline post-pandemic was driven by the closure of Yellow Corp., when the BLS report for August noted a drop of 31,600 jobs. May’s decline of 5,400 jobs is behind only that and the 5,700 jobs lost in September 2022.
With the Yellow losses and the recent declines, the May total of 1,550,100 is now 24,600 jobs below the July 2023 figure of 1,574,700 jobs, right before Yellow declared bankruptcy and began ending the careers of thousands of drivers at Yellow. The total is 29,600 jobs fewer than it was a year ago.
The May data also saw revisions from earlier data on truck transportation jobs in April and March. Seasonally adjusted April jobs were revised downward by 2,300. For March, the downward revision was 1,700.
While economists and analysts generally talk about seasonally adjusted numbers, the not seasonally adjusted numbers paint a different picture.
The report for May shows not seasonally adjusted truck transportation jobs rising significantly, to 1,548,000 jobs from 1,538,600 in April, a figure that was revised down 1,100 jobs from what was originally reported. As one analyst noted, the difference between the rise in not seasonally adjusted jobs and the drop in seasonally adjusted figures suggests the BLS’ adjustment sees a seasonal swing of more than 14,000 jobs in May based on past trends. Applying that adjustment to the not seasonally adjusted figures resulted in the big swing between the two categories.
“The decline was expected, given that spot rates have trended along the floor for most of the year,” David Spencer, director of business intelligence at Arrive Logistics, said in an email to FreightWaves about the report. “Additionally, low spot rates continue to push down contract rates, leading carriers to reduce driver head counts. Total employment is down nearly 30,000 jobs from May 2023, as pressure on asset carriers continues to mount.”
Some of the most volatile numbers in recent jobs reports have come out of the warehouse sector. But that part of the economy was downright boring in May.
Warehousing and storage seasonally adjusted jobs rose 700 jobs, to 1,772,100. But April jobs were revised down by 4,200, and March jobs were reported at 2,100 fewer than last month’s.
After the wild volatility of 2023, when warehouse jobs had several months of declines of 5,000 positions or more — a warehouse job increase only occurred in one month last year — the sector seems to have reached a semblance of balance. Jobs in the warehouse sector are up 5,200 from where they stood in December.
In other highlights from the report:
The BLS provides an unemployment rate for the entire transportation and warehousing sector, which also includes couriers and rail. The rate for May was 5.5%, up from 4.7%. Its recent low rate was 3.3% in June 2023. Average weekly hours worked fell to 37.8. It’s the lowest number in a year.
Shannon Gabriel, vice president of leadership solutions at TBM Consulting Group, noted another statistic: the number of people registered on job search platform Indeed as “ready to work now.” The number of registered users who declared themselves as such in transportation is almost 2.5 million, a figure that Gabriel said is “high.”
“May traditionally shows a lower number of jobs added due to the seasonality impact that the month brings: graduations, end of school, vacations, etc.,” Gabriel said in an email to FreightWaves. “There are fewer hiring managers in position to make decisions than other months. Even with the increase in tourism-based transportation jobs, it isn’t enough to support a growing number of those that are currently unemployed, or soon to be unemployed.”
Average hourly earnings for nonsupervisory truck transportation employees moved higher. At $29.68, the average wage rate in April — there is a one-month lag in reporting that date category — was at its highest ever. Average hours worked in April — 39.8 — declined slightly from 39.9. But they still haven’t cracked 40 hours in 2024, and the recent peak was 42.2 in May 2022.
Rail jobs dropped by just 100. But it isn’t the direction that rail executives say they are heading, with pressure to increase employment to boost service. At 152,900 seasonally adjusted jobs, the total is a mere 100 jobs more than it was last year.
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