Transportation Economic Trends
Employment in Transportation:
Unemployment in the Transportation and Warehousing Sector and in Transportation and Material Moving Occupations
Employment in transportation and related industries and employment in transportation occupations are two ways to measure the Nation’s transportation workforce. This page looks at total unemployment rates in transportation and warehousing sector and transportation and material moving occupations and breaks them down by sex. See our pages on monthly employment in the transportation sector by race and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity and employment by transportation mode and sex.Data presented on this page are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Current Population Survey (CPS). The CPS is a monthly household level survey conducted by the Census Bureau for BLS. It provides data on the labor force, employment, unemployment, persons not in the labor force, hours of work, earnings, and other demographic and labor force characteristics. See data sources on transportation employment and workforce characteristics for more information about the survey and a comparison to other sources.Total unemployment rates reported on this page are seasonally adjusted. Seasonal adjustment is the process of estimating and removing movement in a time series caused by regular seasonal variation in activity. Seasonally adjusted data are not available for total unemployment in transportation and by sex and hence unadjusted numbers are reported on this page. For unadjusted data, monthly changes are only calculated from the same month last year to minimize the effect of seasonal variation.
Total Unemployment in Transportation | Unemployed Men and Women Workers in Transportation
Total Unemployment in Transportation by Month (not seasonally adjusted)
Current
statistics provide us with two ways to measure unemployment in transportation:
(1) unemployment in the transportation and warehousing sector and (2) unemployment in
transportation and material moving occupations. The former captures
unemployed persons previously working in the transportation and
warehousing sector. The latter counts unemployed persons previously working in
any sector — not just in the transportation and warehousing sector — in a
transportation occupation.
Total Unemployment in Transportation | Unemployed Men and Women Workers in Transportation
Unemployed Men and Women Workers in Transportation (Not
Seasonally Adjusted)
When looking
at transportation and material moving occupations, women tend to experience a
higher unemployment rate than men. That difference is less within the
transportation and warehousing sector, although women still experience higher unemployment
rates than men.
See our pages on employment by transportation mode and sex and by race and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity.
Unemployment by Mode and Reasons for Unemployment (Not Seasonally Adjusted)
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics is no longer publishing this data on a monthly basis due to an insufficient sample to provide accurate estimates month-to-month.
Recommended citation
U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Transportation Economic Trends, available at www.bts.gov/product/transportation-economic-trends.
