The American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) trucking index increased 0.7 % following an August’s 0.9% decline.
From ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello:
The see-saw pattern in truck freight tonnage continued again in September, except that the gain didn’t fully wipe out August’s decline. However, over the last few months tonnage has snapped back from softness this past spring and early summer, and is approaching the record high.
I remain concerned about the high level of inventories throughout the supply chain. We recently learned that inventories throughout the supply chain and relative to sales rose slightly in August, which is not a good sign. This could have a negative impact on truck freight volumes over the next few months.
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Compared with one year ago, seasonally adjusted tonnage increased 3.1 %.
Econintersect tries to validate data across data sources. It appears this month that jobs growth says the trucking industry decreased 0.3 % 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
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