Slight drop in trucking jobs in December wraps up overall down employment year

Employment in the truck transportation sector in December continued recent, mostly downward trends, wrapping up a year in which total employment declined slightly.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a drop of 800 jobs in the truck transportation sector for the month. That took total employment down to 1,545,900 jobs. 

After a year in which jobs totals rose in six separate months and fell in the other six, the end result is that employment in the sector declined 5,900 jobs over the course of 2024. That is three-tenths of 1%, not much more than flat.

The starker comparison comes in the two-year trend. Employment in the truck transportation sector closed out 2022 with 1,586,900 jobs, for a net two-year loss of 41,000 jobs.

That span includes the 31,600-job reduction in August 2023, when Yellow Corp. closed its doors. Employment in the truck transportation sector after that closure was 1,543,100 jobs. The December 2024 figure was only 2,800 more than that.  

The decline between November and December came on top of a downward revision of the November employment numbers first reported a month ago. That revision took the November total down 2,000. On top of that, the October figure was reduced by 800 jobs. 

In contrast, even though trucking jobs wer

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