Transportation & Warehousing Snapshot

The drain won’t stop for the transportation and warehousing sectors. After a weak holiday season, the new year continued with the job losses witnessed in 2023. In March, the sector added a tepid 1,200 new jobs, following a stronger month in February of 22,500. Within the sector, warehousing and storage suered the largest losses, shedding 5,500 jobs in March. However, other subsectors like air transportation have had modest increases (+400).

What’s driving this weak growth? The Census publishes quarterly data on retail e-commerce sales which have been subdued over the past year. In 2020, E-commerce sales jumped from 160 billion to 213 billion in a single quarter at the start of the year! In the last quarter of 2023, they rose a mere billion dollars. Spending less money on online retailers is driving lower demand for package handlers, logistics workers, and van drivers.