Employment Data Reset: What the Benchmark Revision Says About the Economy and Trucking Capacity

The January employment report did more than update monthly payroll figures. It reset the baseline.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its annual benchmark revision with its January payroll data, and the changes meaningfully alter the view of both national labor conditions and trucking capacity.

An important point about the January jobs report is that it was — aside from the benchmark revision — quite strong versus recent performance.

• The U.S. added 130,000 payroll jobs, seasonally adjusted
• The unemployment rate edged down to 4.3%
• Labor force participation ticked up to 62.5%

The 130,000 added jobs was the strongest increase in more than a year, though employment growth remains highly concentrated.

In recent months, the combination of private education and health services on the one hand and leisure and hospitality on the other have added more jobs than the overall economy did, meaning that all other sectors combined shed jobs. In January, private education and health services pulled off that feat alone, adding 137,000 of 130,000 net new U.S. jobs, mostly in health care.

So, the labor news generally was pretty good, especially if your only concern is the total number of jobs added and you aren't worried about the distribution and what it arguably implies about our economy — i.e., that we are, as an economy, increasingly dependent on services for the aging, infirm, and, perhaps, people with hypochondria.

That's a discussion for another day. This post focuses specifically on the benchmark revision and what — at least in the context of trucking — it means for freight stakeholders.

Don't miss an episode!

This article highlights an issue from this week's FTR Trucking Market Update Podcast! Tune in to hear the entire episode and download the accompanying slides.

Tune in here!

National Employment: A 1 Million-Job Reset

Monthly employment estimates from BLS are based on sampling a portion of establishments, and there are a host of reasons why that data is imprecise, even with routine revisions each month.

Each year, the BLS reconciles its monthly payroll survey estimates with more comprehensive data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). The QCEW is based on unemployment insurance tax records, making it a far more complete accounting of employment levels than the monthly establishment survey.

This year’s revision was meaningful — not surprising as QCEW releases for 2025Q1 and 2025Q2 had indicated as much. Total non-farm employment for December now is just over 1 million jobs lower than it was previously. 

Still, 1 million jobs might isn't really as big of a deal as it sounds because it is out of an economy that employs nearly 160 million people. Expressed in percentage terms, the 0.6% reduction seems much less significant.

However, that 0.6% reduction is far from evenly distributed, and to the extent employment levels reflect output, more granular revisions help explain why freight has been so sluggish. Here are the revisions at the top-level, sorted by the largest downward percentage changes wrought by the benchmark revision:

• Information, down 68k jobs (2.3%)
• Trade, transportation, & utilities, down 357k (1.2%)
• Leisure and hospitality, down 186k (1.1%)
• Manufacturing, down 107k (0.8%)
• Other services, down 43k (0.7%)
• Mining and logging, down 3k (0.5%)
• Construction, down 28k (0.3%)
• Government, down 68k (0.3%)
• Private education and health services, up 2k (0.0%)

Sure, services had the biggest downward revisions, but one of those broad service sectors — trade, transportation, & utilities — has lots to do with freight, directly and indirectly. Manufacturing also was revised notably lower than the national average.

And what saw an upward revision, albeit a miniscule one? Yep, private education and health services. Even without the strong performance in January, the benchmark revision recognized a rising share of total employment for that sector relative to the rest of the economy.

Trucking Employment Much Lower Than We Thought

Within the transportation, trade, & utilities sector, retail trade's downward revision was just 0.9%. The bulk came from wholesale trade, down 1.9%, and transportation & warehousing, down 1.6%. 

Within transportation & warehousing, warehousing, trucking, and couriers and messengers (aka, parcel and local delivery) account for two-thirds of the jobs. Warehousing and storage jobs were upwardly revised to the tune of 2.3%, however, leaving couriers and messengers (-5.6%) and trucking (-3.1%) to account for the most of the downward change in December.

The couriers and messengers change certainly matters, but we will focus on trucking.

Key Revisions

• January trucking payroll employment declined by 4,300 jobs
• Total for-hire trucking employment now stands at 1.463 million
• That is the lowest level since September 2020
• Pre-pandemic comparison: lowest since August 2017

The largest change in total jobs occurred in general freight truckload:

• November employment — the latest data available at the granular level — was revised downward by 16,500 jobs, or 3.2%
• December shed another 1,400 jobs
• Seasonally adjusted truckload employment now sits at 497,000
• That is the lowest level since February 2014

Changes in other key trucking sectors were significant and even exceeded truckload in percentage terms in a couple of cases:

• Long-distance specialized trucking was lowered by 7,300 jobs, or 5.4%
• Local specialized trucking was lowered by 7,800 jobs, or 3.3%
• Local general freight trucking was lowered by 6,200 jobs, or 2.1%
• General freight LTL barely changed, increasing by 700 jobs, or 0.2%

Although FTR already projected that capacity was very close to the bottom, the latest data supports what we have been saying for quite a while, namely that the principal issue with a sluggish truck freight market is lack of freight, not too much capacity.

What are some key implications of the benchmark revision? Here are a few. 

1. The economy was softer in 2024 than originally believed.

2. Trucking capacity was already contracting more than assumed.

3. The starting point for 2026 is tighter than the data previously indicated.

The revised BLS data helps explain some of the recent strengthening in the spot market and shows that the truck freight sector for a rebound — finally — as freight volumes strengthen. It also means volatility as freight growth will not be consistent from sector to sector or even month to month, probably.

If you are still not convinced about a shift in the market, our latest podcast addresses another topic that reflects stress in the market. New applications for transportation & warehousing businesses — a metric that almost certainly is driven by trucking businesses and, perhaps secondarily, by local delivery businesses working for others — surged in January, rising just under 20% to the highest level since early 2022. 

The trucking applications undoubtedly are coming from the ranks of company drivers working for larger carriers and will put even more stress on shippers' route guide capacity in the coming months.

If you want to see the full employment charts and analysis referenced here, download the slide deck accompanying the latest Trucking Market Update at ftrintel.com/trucking-podcast

FTR subscribers can track these developments in real time through the Trucking Update and Truck & Trailer Outlook reports. Together, they provide weekly insight into spot and contract market conditions, fleet capacity, equipment demand, production, and the macroeconomic forces shaping freight and equipment decisions over the next 24 months. Click on either image below to learn how these products can help your bottom line in 2026.