Trucking Sheds 88,300 Jobs in April

(May 13, 2020) - The U.S. unemployment rate in April rose to 14.7% as 20.5 million Americans lost their jobs last month as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Labor Department, which released its monthly unemployment report May 8. The trucking industry was not immune to the deep labor cuts, and the Labor Department said 88,300 trucking and warehouse positions were lost, even as many trucking firms were busy delivering critically needed medical supplies to hospitals and clinics and groceries to stores. The 14.7% unemployment number is the worst since the Department of Labor began compiling statistics in 1948, and it compares with the 3.5% unemployment rate in April 2019, which was one of the strongest numbers in the past 50 years. “The substantial job declines related to the coronavirus pandemic started in March, as payroll employment declined by 870,000, as revised. Job losses accelerated in April, as an additional 20.5 million jobs were lost,” Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics William Beach said in a statement. “These April losses were pervasive across all industry sectors and brought nonfarm employment to its lowest level since February 2011.”

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