Transportation jobs experienced the first gain in 2016, including the first increase in trucking jobs since January.
The overall transportation sector gained nearly 9,000 jobs in April, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. From January through March, more than 28,000 jobs have been eliminated from the transportation and warehousing sector.
The truck transportation subsector experienced an increase of approximately 700 jobs in April after the industry lost 2,400 in March and 600 in February. Approximately 1,500 trucking jobs were added in January, leaving a net loss of 800 for the year.
Warehousing and storage subsector experienced the largest increase with 6,500 more jobs, followed by couriers and messengers with an increase of 2,500. Rail transport and “support activities for transportation” experienced the only losses with 3,700 and 1,600 fewer jobs in April, respectively.
Last year, the trucking industry suffered a loss in only two out of 12 months. Nearly 7,000 trucking jobs were eliminated last March and 4,000 eliminated in September. December’s increase of more than 23,000 jobs was the largest in 2015.
Average hourly earnings for the transportation and warehousing sector were $23.10 for April, a 2-cent increase from March. Hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees decreased 3 cents to $20.93. Average hourly earnings for private, nonfarm payrolls across all industries were $25.53, 8 cents higher from the previous month. Compared with a year ago, average earnings have gone up by 2.5 percent.
According to the report, the unemployment rate for transportation and material moving occupations is up to 6.8 percent from 6.1 percent last April. The overall unemployment rate for the country was mostly unchanged at 5 percent. The number of long-term unemployed was down by 150,000 compared with the previous month to around 2.1 million.
