Logistics companies hired at a strong pace in December, defying a broader downturn in U.S. employment as surging Covid-19 infections continued to take a toll on the economy.
Core freight transport and distribution sectors added 52,900 jobs last month, according to seasonally adjusted preliminary employment figures released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, as package delivery, warehousing and trucking operators staffed up to meet surging demand from online shoppers and big shipping customers.
The gains came as the overall U.S. economy lost 140,000 jobs in December, capping the worst year of job loss on records going back to 1939. The unemployment rate held at 6.7% last month, and the Labor Department said the jobless rate hit 14.8% in April.
Steep cuts in service-sector employment drove last month’s decline, with leisure and hospitality operators shedding nearly half a million jobs amid rising Covid-19 cases and new business restrictions.
But goods-producing companies gained 93,000 jobs in December and the rebounding manufacturing industry added 38,000 positions, pushing more freight into logistics networks and highlighting the diverging impacts of the pandemic.
“When people can’t go to restaurants or bars or go on vacation, they consume more goods,” said
Nick Bunker,
an economist at job-search marketplace Indeed.com. “They’re buying furniture, getting things delivered to their homes, and also in some instances doing renovations to their homes. Those goods, those need to be moved around and delivered to folks.”
Courier and messenger companies that deliver packages to homes and businesses added 37,400 jobs in December, the 10th straight month of gains. Parcel carrier payrolls rose 24.4% in 2020, adding 210,200 positions since January 2020.
The hiring spree will continue in 2021, said
Satish Jindel,
president of ShipMatrix Inc., which analyzes package-shipping data. Parcel carriers are adding capacity to handle the surge in e-commerce, he said, and the expanding rollout of Covid-19 vaccine distribution will bring additional volumes to delivery giants
and
FedEx Corp.
The shift to digital commerce has also boosted hiring at warehousing and storage operators, which include online fulfillment sites for companies such as
Amazon.com Inc.,
which has added hundreds of thousands of permanent and seasonal positions since the pandemic began. The warehousing sector gained 8,200 jobs last month, pushing overall employment in the field to 1.3 million compared with 1.2 million in December 2019.
Trucking companies ended a roller coaster year for the sector by adding 7,300 jobs in December. After shedding 92,000 positions in April, the industry is in rebuilding mode, but remains 42,100 jobs short of the employment level a year ago.
Write to Jennifer Smith at [email protected]
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