In early February, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released benchmark revisions to its database on payroll employment going back to 2021. Of greatest interest to us were the changes made to the truck transportation employment (TTE) component of total non-farm payrolls.
As you can see on the chart below, the latest edition of this series (red bars) was revised downward by about 33,000 people compared to the figures (blue line) that had been previously reported. The details on which sectors of the industry were most revised will not be available for another month.
Of special note was the fact not only is the high for this expansion smaller than previously reported, it was shown to have occurred in July of 2022, six months sooner than the previous reading of January 2023.
The black bar on the chart marks the month in which the effects of the bankruptcy of Yellow Freight was picked up by the BLS. Note the decline is about the same in both series. The track of employment growth since that event shows a slight upward trend in the current version, whereas it had been flat in the old series.
