Logistics, Transport Hiring Bounced Back in June
Parcel and trucking payrolls increased, extending a rebound from a first-quarter swoon amid upbeat signals from broader jobs growth
Trucking fleets added 4,300 jobs in June, the Labor Department said in a report Friday. PHOTO: SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES
Transportation and logistics companies added jobs at a strong pace in June, in a rebound from weak hiring this spring and a sign of growing confidence in U.S. freight demand.
Couriers and messengers boosted payrolls by 6,500 jobs last month while trucking fleets added 4,300 jobs, the Labor Department said in a report Friday that included upward revisions for the past two months in trucking employment.
“Over the last month or so we think the outlook for trucking has firmed,” said Avery Vise, an analyst at transportation research group FTR. “It’s certainly not as robust as 2018, but that would have been virtually impossible.”
Overall, warehousing and transportation employers focused on freight and parcel business added 14,900 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis from May to June, part of a strong national report that included 224,000 additional jobs last month.
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The national report included upbeat signals for potential shipping growth in coming months, with goods-producing firms boosting payrolls by 37,000 jobs, including 17,000 additional jobs in a manufacturing sector closely tied to trucking demand. The hiring contrasted with recent signals of softening factory output—the Institute for Supply Management’s most recent Purchasing Managers’ Index reached its lowest point since October 2016—but measures of demand for trucking service have been improving.
“After a weak February and March, we’ve started to see since the beginning of April improvement not only in jobs numbers but in some spot-market metrics. June in the [trucking] spot market was a reasonably strong month. Rates are still well below long-term averages but they are following seasonal trends,” said Mr. Vise.
Trucking analysts say the industry faces tough comparisons to 2018, when demand was surging at a historic rate. DAT Solutions LLC’s index of available loads in the truckload spot market was down more than 50% in June from a year ago, but the measure improved 35.9% from May to June.
Trucking companies remain reasonably confident in their near-term outlook and are going forward with plans to replace older trucks and in some cases expand their fleets, said Michael DiCecco, executive managing director of Huntington Bancshares Inc.’s asset finance business.
But some are cautious as U.S. trade tensions with China drag on, Mr. DiCecco said in an interview late last month. “They’re not necessarily sure outside of contract business where the winds will be in 60 or 90 days,” he said.
Warehousing and storage employers added 1,400 jobs in June, extending a slowdown in hiring growth in a sector that has surged in recent years on the growing shift of retail business from bricks-and-mortar stores to e-commerce sales.
Warehouse companies say they are facing more difficulty in finding workers and many are scaling up digital efforts to find and recruit workers in a tight job market.
Kenco Group, a third-party logistics company based in Chattanooga, Tenn., is testing a flexible labor service called HapiGig in Atlanta that provides trained workers to fill in when staffers are sick or taking vacation days. Many have full-time jobs elsewhere but are looking to pick up extra shifts, said Scott Mayfield, Kenco’s chief administrative officer.
“We’re literally sharing labor with some of our competition, which is fine,” Mr. Mayfield said. “We’re not splitting the atom.”
The company is also targeting recruiting of veterans, disabled people and other groups, and Mr. Mayfield said they also are opening up to “people who have a criminal record. It’s an untapped labor market, they have a hard time getting jobs,” he said. “We’ve had good success with those employees.”
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