Econintersect: The American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) trucking index increased 1.4% in August after falling 0.4% in July. It should be noted that there has been little growth in trucking jobs for August 2013 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. From ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello:
The strength in tonnage continued again in August, with the index increasing in three of the last four months. The improvement corresponds with a solid gain in manufacturing output during August reported by the Federal Reserve last week.
However, tonnage’s strength in recent months, and really through 2013, is probably overstating the robustness of the economy and trucking generally. It just so happens that the sectors of the economy that are growing the fastest – in housing starts, auto production, and energy output, primarily through hydraulic fracturing – produce heavier than average freight, leading to accelerated growth in tonnage relative to shipments or loads.
Truckload industry loads have accelerated the last few months, but are flat for the year, while less-than-truckload shipments are up less than 1.5% in 2013.
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Compared with August 2012, seasonally adjusted tonnage was up 6.9% (largest year-over-year gain since December 2011). Truck tonnage year-to-date is up 5.0% over 2012.
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) and trucking jobs indexed to Jan 2000 = 100 has has been flat for three months (blue line). Please note using BLS employment data in real time is risky, as their data is normally backward adjusted significantly. However, long term trends are showing a steady growth.
Please note that the ATA does not release an unadjusted data series where Econintersect can make an independent evaluation. 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
