Freight Transportation Crumbles in March

[ATeam]

While this statistic does not apply directly to expediting, it is the case that trends in the larger transportation industry affect us too. It appears we are not out of the woods yet and that if a bottom has been reached or soon will be, we may well stay there for a while before anything resembling a recovery begins.

This from the Journal of Commerce:

"The volume of freight transportation services in the United States in March dropped 3.3 percent, as measured by the Freight Transportation Services Index of the U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

The March decrease was the largest monthly drop for any month since March 2000 and brought the TSI to its lowest level in more than six years. At 101.4, the index is at its lowest since May 2002, when it was 101.1. The Freight TSI is down 10.4 percent from its historic peak of 113.1 reached in November 2005.


"Compared with March of 2008, the index is down 6.4 percent, the largest March-to-March decline in the 20 years for which the TSI is calculated."

 

[chefdennis]

Employment in the trucking industry also took a big hit in April:

April Costs Truckers 16,000 More Jobs

John D. Boyd | May 8, 2009 5:53PM GMT
The Journal of Commerce Online - News Story
April Costs Truckers 16,000 More Jobs | Journal of Commerce

Transportation/warehousing sector loses 38,000 as unemployment keeps rising

The U.S. trucking industry shed more than 16,000 jobs in April, the Labor Department said, as part of a 38,000 job loss in the transportation and warehousing sector.

The full U.S. economy lost 539,000 nonfarm payroll jobs, Labor said, and the unemployment rate rose to 8.9 percent from 8.5 percent in March as the recession’s impact continued to spread.

Labor listed 4.256 million workers in transportation and warehouse jobs last month, down from 4.294 million in March and 4.552 million in April 2008.

Trucking has the largest contingent in that group, with 1.283 million, and its 16,200 job loss was also the largest in the transport and storage industries. Warehousing ended with 644,100 workers, after it lost 7,600 in April.

The transit and ground passenger transportation group lost 6,200. In other transport areas that include passenger and cargo operations, air transportation shed 3,200, rail 1,500 and water 1,400.

And while the Recovery Act’s stimulus funds were expected to first buoy the construction markets, that industry lost 110,000 jobs in April to end with 6.348 million.

Manufacturing, which generates the shipments that freight carriers depend on, cut 149,000 jobs to leave 12.152 million. Retail trade, which includes clothing stores to automobile dealers to grocers and orders the goods that trucks and trains deliver, shed 46,700 to end with 14.824 million.
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[greg334]

It appears we are not out of the woods yet and that if a bottom has been reached or soon will be, we may well stay there for a while before anything resembling a recovery begins.

First it matters who you are in this business, I find the elite has the least to worry about while the lowly owners and drivers have the most. Hearing this stuff from the experts makes me wonder if there is a reason for it outside of informing us of the obvious.

Well outside of that, I think we will see more declines in freight as more companies hit the rocks after August and September.

There is hope however, most of us who are not employee minded owners are in recession mode and have been for a long time, we have been careful to learn more and do more to think outside the box in order to hedge against harder times that are coming.

 

[gjmcclain]

MSNBC had an interesting story on their site regarding how the trucking industry is a true representative on how the economy is going.

Here is the link.