For the eighth straight month, the for-hire trucking industry added jobs on a month-to-month basis in December, according to the Department of Labor’s monthly Employment Situation Report.
Trucking’s addition of 2,900 jobs came amid strong employment growth in the U.S. economy, which added 312,000 jobs in December — one of the largest gains of 2018.
Total employment in the for-hire trucking industry was 1.4969 million in December, according to the DOL. Save for April, the industry has added jobs on a month-to-month basis in every month since last September 2017, with total employment growing by more than 44,000 jobs in that stretch.
On a year-over-year basis, industry employment was up 36,600 jobs from December 2017.
The country’s unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9 percent, up from November’s 3.7 percent, due to an increase in job seekers.
