The number of employees working in the warehousing and storage industry in America has reached a new all-time high of 974,000. Last month alone employers added 8,100 new hires in the business. That’s up 0.8% in one month. Since 2014 the industry has been averaging annualized hiring growth of 7.83%.
The demand for employees who support e-commerce is ramping up, with hiring for warehouse workers, truckers, and delivery drivers all expanding. Jennifer Smith writes at The Wall Street Journal:
November marked the eighth straight month of expansion in a sector that has boomed as more people buy goods from e-commerce giants such as Amazon.com Inc. On Cyber Monday this year, shoppers spent $6.59 billion online, nearly a billion dollars more than last year, making it the biggest online shopping day yet, according to software company Adobe Systems Inc.
Those gains come as the broader jobs market logged strong growth across sectors ranging from manufacturing and health care to construction. Overall nonfarm payrolls added 228,000 positions—more than economists had expected—and the unemployment rate held at 4.1%, a 17-year low.
Job growth accelerated in the transportation sector, bolstered by strong manufacturing activity and increased freight demand from retailers.
Trucking payrolls grew by 1,800 in November as carriers riding a resurgent freight market scrambled to find more drivers in a tight labor market. In November, average rates for refrigerated transport and for dry vans, which haul everything from consumer electronics to clothes, hit a three-year high on the spot market, where shippers book transportation on a daily basis, according to DAT Solutions LLC.
Many large trucking fleets are raising driver pay, and expect hiring to get harder as more truckers retire or leave for jobs in industries that pay more keep them closer to home, such as energy or construction.
Read more here.
