Econintersect: The American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) trucking index rose 1.5% in April 2014 after rising 0.6% in March. From ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello:
April was the third straight gain in tonnage totaling 4%. Tonnage is off 1.4% from the all-time high in November.
I’m pleased that tonnage has been making solid progress after falling a total of 5.2% in December and January. And April’s nice gain was better than the contraction in industrial production and the lackluster retail sales during the same month.
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Compared with March 2013, seasonally adjusted tonnage increased 4.8%.
Econintersect tries to validate data across data sources. It appears this month that jobs growth says the trucking industry increased 0.0% month-over-month (red line). Please note using BLS employment data in real time is risky, as their data is normally backward adjusted significantly.
This data series is not transparent and therefore cannot be relied on. Please note that the ATA does not release an unadjusted data series (although they report the unadjusted value each month – but do not report revisions to this data) where Econintersect can make an independent evaluation. The data is apparently subject to significant backward revision. Not all trucking companies are members of the ATA, and therefore it is unknown if this data is a representative sampling of the trucking industry.
source: ATA