Breaking: Truck transportation jobs dropped slightly in May

· Friday, June 05, 2020

Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves

The number of workers employed in the Truck Transportation sector tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) fell slightly in May, to 1,431,600 from 1,432,800 the month before.

That figure was reported in the monthly unemployment statistics released today by BLS. The BLS reported that total non-farm payroll employment in May was up by 2.5 million, with the unemployment rate falling to 13.3%. That is down 1.4 percentage points.

The monthly BLS survey also reported that rail industry employment declined to 153,200 from 155,300 a month earlier. A year ago, it was 178,000.

FreightWaves will add to this story later this morning.

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.