American Trucking Associations
American Trucking Associations’advanced seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 1.1% in May, following a revised loss of 1.4% during April. In May, the index equaled 132.1 (2000=100). The all-time high is 135.8, reached in January 2015.
A new authoritative report credits logisticians’ savvy management of their transportation networks for holding logistics costs to a historically low percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
According to the 26th Annual State of Logistics Report (SoL), the logistics and transportation industry chalked up its best year since the Great Recession, with U.S. business logistics costs rising 3.1 percent to $1.45 trillion last year.
May shipment volume and payments have reached high points for 2015. Both indexes have been rising for the last four months after a dismal January due to bad weather and delays at West Coast ports.
The House of Representatives by a narrow margin has passed and sent to the Senate the controversial FY2016 Department of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill that President Barack Obama said he would veto if it reached his desk without major changes, including three involving the trucking industry.
U.S. Department of Transportation
The Freight Transportation Services Index (TSI), which is based on the amount of freight carried by the for-hire transportation industry, fell 1.8 percent in April from March, declining after an increase in the previous month, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ (BTS). The April 2015 index level (120.4) was 27.2 percent above the April 2009 low during the most recent recession.
Import cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports has returned to normal levels following ratification of a new West Coast labor agreement, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released today by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.
U.S. employers added a robust 280,000 jobs in May, showing that the economy is back on track after starting 2015 in a slump.
The Labor Department said Friday that the unemployment rate ticked up to 5.5 percent from 5.4 percent in April. But that occurred for a good reason: Hundreds of thousands more people sought jobs in May, and not all found them.
Last month’s strong job growth suggests that employers remained confident enough to keep hiring even after the economy shrank during the first three months of the year. The government also revised up its estimate of job growth in March and April by a combined net 32,000.
Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 280,000 in May, and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 5.5 percent. Job gains occurred in professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and health care. Mining employment continued to decline.
US shippers that diverted Asian imports to east coast ports to avoid the heavily congested Pacific coast container terminals could do well to review their strategy following a return to normality on the west coast.
“April’s sharp increase in the LEI seems to have helped stabilize its slowing trend, suggesting the paltry economic growth in the first quarter may be temporary,” said Ataman Ozyildirim, Economist at The Conference Board. “However, the growth of the LEI does not support a significant strengthening in the economic outlook at this time. The improvement in building permits helped to drive the index up this month, but gains in other components, in particular the financial indicators, have been somewhat more muted.”
