Transportation Economic Trends
Employment in Transportation:
Employment in Transportation Related Occupations
Employment in transportation and related industries and employment in transportation occupations are two ways to measure the Nation’s transportation workforce. This page highlights annual employment in transportation occupations and selected characteristics. For monthly employment by industry see the Monthly Employment in the Transportation and Warehousing Sector page.
2023 Year-in-Review
- In 2023, the largest number of people (2.0 million) worked as heavy-duty truck drivers. This includes drivers working within the transportation and warehousing sector and in non-transportation sectors, e.g., truck drivers employed by the wholesale and retail trade industry.
- Annual median wages vary widely, from $219,140 for airline pilots, copilots, and flight engineers (highest wage) to $32,580 for ambulance drivers and attendants (lowest wage) in 2023. The 5 lowest-wage transportation-related occupations collectively employed about 600,000 workers, while the 5 highest-wage occupations employed about 245,000 workers in 2023.
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) forecasts heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers will remain the largest transportation-related occupation in 2033 (projected to employ about 2.3 million workers). BLS projects taxi drivers will grow at the fastest rate (by 13.3%); while they forecast aircraft structure, surfaces, rigging, and systems assemblers to decline at the fastest rate (by 16.2%).
- Nearly 10% of the transportation workforce was self-employed in 2023.
- The average compensation for transportation-related occupations is $10.53 per hour less than the average for all occupations as of the fourth quarter of 2023 - the largest difference on record (based on records beginning in the first quarter of 2004).
- In 2023, more workers in transportation and material moving occupations worked part-time (23.9%) than in all occupations. Since 2020, more workers in transportation and material moving occupations worked part-time than in all occupations (based on historical data from 2003). Despite exceeding the percentage for all occupations in 2023, the share of part-time workers remained below the historic high of 27.2% reached in 2009 during the 2007 to 2009 recession.
Employment and Wages of Transportation Related Occupations | Employment Projections | Self-employed | Hourly Compensation | Part-time Employment
Employment and Wages for Transportation Related Occupations
Occupational employment data reveals the full range of transportation jobs by capturing workers employed in transportation-related occupations outside of the transportation sector. Many workers hold transportation-related occupations but work in non-transportation sectors, for example truck drivers employed by the wholesale and retail trade sector.
Because some occupations
are more seasonal, analysts use annual wage data instead of the average hourly
compensation to compare industry employment categories.
Annual wages vary widely with the largest number of workers in the lowest paying occupations and the smallest number in the highest paying.
Data do not include the self-employed nor independent contractors.
Employment and Wages of Transportation Related Occupations | Employment Projections | Self-employed | Hourly Compensation | Part-time Employment
Employment Projections for Transportation Occupations
BLS forecasts national-level employment for 10 years ahead of the base year. To the extent possible, BLS accounts for new technologies and other factors expected to affect future employment levels. For more information about the employment projections, see the BLS employment projection methods.
The COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected some industries and these industries have lower base-year values. BLS expects these industries to experience cyclical recoveries in the early part of the 2021–31 decade as industry output and employment normalize and return to their long-term trends. As a result, BLS projects higher employment growth in these industries. For more information on the effects of COVID-19 on employment levels, see Dubina, K., et. al. "Projections overview and highlights, 2021–31", Monthly Labor Review, Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 2022, available at: https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2022/article/projections-overview-and-highlights-2021-31.htm as of July 2023.
Data include the self-employed and independent contractors. Taxi drivers include rideshare drivers.
Self-employed
The
Bureau of Transportation Statistics reports the number
of persons employed in the transportation and warehousing sector each
month. These data include only wage and salary workers and not the
self-employed. Data on the number of self-employed persons in transportation
are available only on an annual basis and from a different data source which
measures employment by occupation and industry rather than by industry alone.
Nearly 10% of the transportation workforce is self-employed. The
share of self-employed varies across transportation occupations; from a high of over 90% of all taxi drivers to a low of less than 1% among industrial truck and tractor
operators. Taxi drivers include ride-share operators. Ride-share
operators work as independent contractors rather than as wage and salary
employees for companies such as Uber and Lyft.
Employment and Wages of Transportation Related Occupations | Employment Projections | Self-employed | Hourly Compensation | Part-time Employment
Hourly Compensation for Transportation Related Occupations
Compensation includes wages
and benefits. Workers holding a transportation or material moving occupation earn less than workers holding any occupation.
Employment and Wages of Transportation Related Occupations | Employment Projections | Self-employed | Hourly Compensation | Part-time Employment
Part-time Employment in Transportation Related Occupations
Not all workers in
transportation work full-time. The percentage of workers employed
part-time in transportation and material moving occupations is slightly lower
than the percentage of workers employed part-time in all occupations. Workers holding part-time positions tends to rise during periods of economic decline when the number of full-time opportunities tends to decline.
Recommended citation
U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Transportation Economic Trends, available at www.bts.gov/product/transportation-economic-trends.
