The limits of government statistics
More jobs mean trucking companies are hauling more freight. More freight means more utilization. And more utilization means more parts and service.
There’s little doubt that trucking is, growing. There are reasons to question the monthly figures from BLS, however.
For starters, the monthly employment situation report comes from something called the Current Employment Survey (CES), which tracks employment at the industry level but not down to the occupation level. So while drivers clearly represent the majority of trucking industry employees and most new hires surely are drivers, there’s no way to know precisely how many. Also, the survey doesn’t capture the one-truck owner-operator, so that’s a drawback as well.
And there’s a methodological limitation with the CES data. BLS estimates the number of jobs in an industry by taking a sample of the number of employees who are paid during the pay period that includes the 12th of the month. Regardless of how long the employee works, an employee will be counted as being on an employer’s payroll.
In an industry that is experiencing high turnover, this potential counting of both the departing employee and the replacement can significantly skew the numbers. And make no mistake: Trucking is a higher-turnover industry.
