This article details the impacts of the pandemic and other related factors to the transport industry. It shows the changes in employment numbers and how the lockdown measures have potentially long-term effects on the sector. For more information about this topic and others related to the transport industry and the trucking subsector, consult with our legal professionals here.
Record Growth
Despite the ongoing pandemic and other consequential current events, the transport industry has steadily been finding its footing these last few months. According to the numbers gathered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the industry has employed an additional 145,000 people in November 2020. This marks the largest monthly increase on record since September 1997.
November also marks the sixth consecutive month that the transport industry has seen a boost in its numbers. These six consecutive monthly increases came after four successive decreases that culminated in an industry-record drop that happened in April.
The Trucking Subsector
In the trucking subsector, jobs also went up by a staggering 13,000 in November 2020. This comes after a noteworthy increase of 7,000 jobs in October. This represents the largest employment increase in the trucking subsector since April 2013, where there was an almost 16,000-job rise. This was in stark contrast with April of 2020, where the sector experienced its second largest number of jobs since 1990.
Other Subsectors
The subsector made up of couriers and messengers had the largest increase in the industry with almost 82,000 more jobs. The warehousing and storage subsector came in at a distant second with an increase of 36,800 jobs.
Out of the entire transport industry, only two subsectors, rail and pipeline transport, experienced job loss in November 2020. Both subsectors reported a loss of only 200 jobs.
Year to Date
Despite the continuous surge of employment numbers in the sector to date, the trucking subsector is still recovering from the downward trend in April 2020. The subsector is still down by 55,400 jobs because of it.
This is also true for the transport industry as a whole. It is still down by 102,600 jobs for 2020. However, this has been a vast improvement since July, when the industry reported a loss of more than 400,000 jobs. For additional perspective, the entire sector reported a loss of almost 560,000 jobs in April alone.
Income for the Industry
The average hourly earnings for employees in the transportation and warehousing sector is at $25.61 for November 2020. This number has seen an increase of $0.06 since the previous month. The average is also up by $0.76 compared to the same month a year prior.
For the people working in production and nonsupervisory positions, the hourly earnings have dropped to $22.90 – a decrease of $0.04 compared to October 2020. This is in contrast with the average hourly earnings for private and nonfarm jobs across industries ($29.58) which saw a $0.09 increase from the month before.
Unemployment
There is also good news in the unemployment rate of the sector, which saw a decrease to 9.3 percent compared to the 10 percent rate that was reported in October 2020. However, the transportation and material-moving industry only reported a 4.4 percent unemployment rate in the same month last year.
In the entire United States, unemployment in November 2020 also decreased slightly by 0.2 percent to 6.7 percent compared to October’s rate of 6.9 percent. This was the result of the addition of 245,000 jobs in the economy. Like the transportation industry, the unemployment rate reached an all-time high in April, where it landed at almost 15 percent. Since then, the rate has been in steady decrease in the last seven consecutive months.
The unemployment rate in November 2020 is still down by 3.4 percent compared to February, just before the restrictions and stay-at-home orders took effect. Still, the decrease of eight percentage points from April is something to be optimistic about.
Impacts of the Pandemic to the Industry
One of the most impacted sectors by the spread of the pandemic is the transport industry. Not only has it seen unprecedented job and revenue loss in the first few months of the lockdown measures, but it has also seen multiple paths to recovery since. This recovery has, however, taken a different form.
As other huge partner sectors like retail, manufacturing, and tourism suffer business losses and saw their own declines, life sciences and consumer goods have experienced the opposite. The transport industry has therefore shifted its focus to these areas to adapt.
According to Deloitte, the pandemic has potential long-term effects on the transport industry that stakeholders need to be prepared for.
- Organizations in the transport industry should strike a critical balance between reduced workforces while still delivering essential goods and services. They should focus on maintaining the integrity and viability of their networks across the country and the world. This also comes alongside continuing safety measures like social distancing and sanitation.
- Key investors and stakeholders should also consider turning their sights on longer-term investment programs. They need to be repositioned to accommodate the shifts that have already taken place as well as the projected potential changes still to come.
- One of the steps into making sure that the transportation networks continue to be accessible is for organizations to plan for the availability of key personnel to maintain these networks and ensure the training of critical skills.
- Even after lockdown measures are lifted, there are no guarantees that commuting and traveling patterns will return to their pre-pandemic states.
The Deloitte article continues with a list of suggested questions for executives and boards of the transport industry to ask themselves.
- How can they work with the government and other important stakeholders to make sure there is long-term financial viability for the transportation networks and supply chains?
- How can these organizations make sure that key personnel will stay protected and available to maintain the operations through the networks, even after extended lockdown measures?
- What are the inherent risks that the supply chains are exposed to and how can they be minimized?
- What kind of cost-efficient opportunities to maintain and renew are available at this time and in the coming future?
- How can organizations reorganize capital investment plans amidst shocks to the revenue and shifts of how the transportation networks are being used?