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Trucking loses 94,000 jobs in 2009
By Avery Vise
Payroll employment among for-hire trucking companies dropped 7 percent – or 94,200 jobs – in 2009 to approximately 1.247 million workers, according to the latest figures released Jan. 8 by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
For December, payroll employment was down 0.3 percent from November.
With the estimated 3,300 jobs lost in December, the trucking industry has lost 208,000 jobs – or 14.3 percent – since seasonally adjusted trucking employment peaked in January 2007 at more than 1.45 million. The BLS numbers reflect all payroll employment in for-hire trucking, but they don’t include trucking-related jobs in other industries, such as a truck driver for a private fleet.
The jobs report for the overall economy in December was slightly better on a percentage basis than that for the trucking industry. Total non-farm employment fell by 85,000 jobs or 0.1 percent. During 2009, the economy lost 4.083 million jobs, or 3.9 percent.
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