In The News

Trucking jobs up in April

Trucking companies added 1,000 jobs in April, but payroll employment for the industry was 3,200 lower than what the government reported last month for March.

Preliminary figures released by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the for-hire trucking industry added 1,000 jobs in April over March, but the latest figures also revised downward the payroll employment numbers for February and March.

The upshot is that the 600-job increase BLS reported for March last month became a 2,400-job loss. And that’s on top of a 1,200-job downward revision for February that’s also included in the figures BLS released today, May 7.

Trucking employment in April was down 47,700, or 3.7 percent, from April 2009. Preliminary data show payroll employment of almost 1.227 million jobs – down 226,700, or 15.6 percent, from the trucking employment peak in January 2007. The BLS numbers reflect all payroll employment in for-hire trucking, but they don’t include trucking-related jobs in other industries, such as a truck driver for a private fleet.

Within the broad category of transportation and warehousing, employment was down 20,000 due to a 21,000-job reduction in the courier and messenger industry.

Nationwide, the economy gained 290,000 jobs in April, according to preliminary BLS numbers. A large portion of that increase resulted from the hiring of 66,000 temporary workers to conduct the Census.

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