Trucking adds 1,500 jobs in January, U.S. unemployment drops slightly

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Updated Feb 8, 2016
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The for-hire trucking industry in January added 1,500 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the Labor Department’s monthly preliminary employment report.

January’s total employment figure in the for-hire trucking industry, reported by the DOL as 1.465 million, is just over 24,000 jobs higher than January 2015. Also, December’s preliminary numbers were upwardly revised by approximately 4,000 jobs.

The U.S. economy as a whole added just over 150,000 jobs in the month, while the country’s unemployment rate fell from 5 percent to 4.9 percent.

The economy’s transportation and warehousing sector, the umbrella industry for truck transportation, lost 20,300 jobs in the month. The construction industry added 18,000 jobs in the month, according to the DOL, while U.S. manufacturers added 29,000 jobs.