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Breaking News: US adds 4,600 truck transportation jobs in September

Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves

The number of jobs in the U.S. truck transportation category rose 4,600 in September, less than half the rate of growth recorded between July and August. 

In the latest monthly report released Friday morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, truck transportation jobs were reported at 1,454,400 for September, up from 1,449,800 for August. That August number was revised upward from 1,449,500 jobs in the preliminary report released last month.

With that revision in August, and that the July numbers are now considered permanent and no longer preliminary, it shows that truck transportation jobs rose an even 10,000 positions between July and August, up to 1,449,800 jobs from 1,439,800 jobs. The July number was revised up to 1,439,500 jobs. 

The growth between August and September, even in a market for drivers that some analysts are likening to the crazy tightness of 2018, wasn’t even half of what the growth was between July and August. 


The report for warehousing and storage jobs continues to show the impact of e-commerce. Jobs in that sector rose 32,300 to 1,253,800 jobs. It’s also up 66,600 jobs just from July. The growth since July is actually more than the 60,600 job increase from September 2019. The August to September number was slightly less than the 34,400 job increase between July and August. 

On the rails, employment inched up 100 jobs to 145,900. That is still well below the 170,000 jobs from September 2019.

FreightWaves will continue to follow this story over the course of the day. 


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John Kingston

John has an almost 40-year career covering commodities, most of the time at S&P Global Platts. He created the Dated Brent benchmark, now the world’s most important crude oil marker. He was Director of Oil, Director of News, the editor in chief of Platts Oilgram News and the “talking head” for Platts on numerous media outlets, including CNBC, Fox Business and Canada’s BNN. He covered metals before joining Platts and then spent a year running Platts’ metals business as well. He was awarded the International Association of Energy Economics Award for Excellence in Written Journalism in 2015. In 2010, he won two Corporate Achievement Awards from McGraw-Hill, an extremely rare accomplishment, one for steering coverage of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and the other for the launch of a public affairs television show, Platts Energy Week.