U.S. Trucking Adds 3,200 Jobs, But It’s Not Enough

WASHINGTON, DC — Unemployment rates in the U.S. have been consistently dropping, but job growth is slowing down, new U.S. Labor Department figures show.

In January, 3,200 people found jobs in trucking, while wider transportation and warehousing sector – which includes trucking – added 10,000 jobs, truckinginfo reports. The number of trucking jobs refers to only those in the for-hire sector and not ones in businesses, such as construction or with private fleets.

In total, there were 113,000 more jobs in the U.S. in January, but even that gain (higher than the 75,000 new jobs in December), was not enough because economists were expecting even more jobs to be added in January.

Even so, the new figures pushed the U.S. unemployment rate down to 6.6 percent from 6.7 percent in December, the lowest rate since October 2008. In January, job gains occurred in construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade, and mining.

“A weak start to the year with back-to-back disappointing employment reports in December and January suggest momentum in the labor market has waned,” says Lindsey Piegza, chief economist at the investment firm Sterne Agee. “While weather may have slowed consumer foot traffic at points during the month or impeded manufacturing capacity in parts of the country, goods production hiring improved at the start of the year, making it difficult to blame weather for the headline weakness.”

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