BLS revision: Far fewer workers in truck transportation than earlier estimated

In August, the BLS said the transportation and warehousing sector was one of the only segments reported by the BLS that would show a significant upturn in total employment. The actual numbers reported Friday were that transportation and warehousing jobs in January 2025 totaled 6,711,400, up from 6,583,800 a year earlier.

But trucking did not contribute to that rise. To the contrary, it showed significant declines not just from a year ago, but in 2023 as well.

When the BLS reports its preliminary numbers in August, it does so just for the overall sectors. So it does not indicate the direction of movements for the subsectors, like truck transportation or warehousing.

The revised report shows December 2024 truck transportation employment at 1,545,900 jobs. That is 27,800 fewer than in December 2023.

But when December jobs were first reported in January under the pre-revision model, the year-ago difference was just 5,900.

That sort of stark difference between the old model’s comparison of 2024 and 2023 carries through the report. For example, November ’24 versus November ’23 was originally reported as just 3,400 fewer jobs. The revised difference is now 28,900 jobs. 

The revision isn’t just for a year. Going back two or three years and comparing what was reported last month versus what is being reported this month in the revised model shows numerous revisions. Back into 2022, the differences aren’t big; in some cases, they are just 100 jobs.

But as the dates get closer to the present, the differences begin to creep into the thousands and then the tens of thousands.

The result is that the end-of-year figures for truck transportation were originally reported for 2024 as 1,545,900 jobs. The revised figure is 1,518,100 jobs. The revised end-of-2023 jobs figure is 1,534,600. The pre-revision number was 1,551,800.

The end-of-2022 figure actually rose slightly in the revision, to 1,587,700 jobs from 1,586,900.

As far as recent trends in the revised truck transportation model, January jobs were reported as 1,521,900, a healthy increase of 3,800.

David Spencer, vice president of Market Intelligence at Arrive Logistics, described the downward revisions as “significant.”

“They bring total trucking employment back to roughly flat with pre-covid levels (Up 0.34% from Feb 2020),” he said in an email to FreightWaves. The indication here is that any employment gains seen throughout the pandemic era of high rates have been wiped out by the poor trucking conditions seen through falling rates the past several years. While spot rates have finally shown stability, even some slight inflationary pressure on year-over-year comps over the past quarter, there is no real clarity around when the rate environment will improve for truckload carriers.”

Warehouse jobs soar; so does rail employment

The revision showed an enormous jump in warehouse jobs. Revised figures show warehouse jobs at 1,842,800 in December. But when December was first reported a month ago, the figure was 1,770,300 jobs, a revision of more than 70,000. 

Rail jobs also got a boost in the revision. That number had trended around 150,000 to 152,000 jobs for several years. But the revision put the January figure at 156,300. The lowest monthly number in the revised jobs report for rail in 2024 was 154,900, and the revision had the peak number of 157,900 jobs in March and April of last year.

Shannon Gabriel, vice president of the Leadership Solutions Practice at TBM Consulting, keeps her eye on employment trends through openings listed on sites such as LinkedIn and Monster. 

“January held tight with 332,000 open Logistics and Supply Chain jobs posted on LinkedIn, in close comparison to December’s 331k open jobs,” she said in an email to FreightWaves. “This is in line with this morning’s jobs report; there’s not too much change in the transportation sector apart from a slight increase in trucking jobs.”

Gabriel noted an increase in resumes posted from supply chain workers listed as “ready to work now.” She said that could be a function of supply chain workers impacted by jobs lost in the California fires.

In other notable numbers in the report:

• The hourly wage rate for truck transportation production and nonsupervisory employees held above $30 for the second consecutive month. That data is on a one-month lag. But even after revisions, it was in excess of $30 for November and December, the first two months they have crossed that mark.

• The BLS reports an unemployment rate for the transportation and warehousing sector as a whole, though not one for the individual subsectors. In January, that rate was down to 3.6% from 4.3% a month earlier. In the post-pandemic era, that 3.6% number has been matched several months, but it has never been lower than that. It was 3.4% in January 2020, just before the pandemic; it was 15.7% in May 2020.

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