The Indeed Hiring Lab tracks Transportation employment trends, analyzing the latest Indeed data. We examine overall labor market trends and dive deeper into job posting trends in various Transportation occupational categories. Finally, we examine recent trends in worker churn.
Takeaways:
- The consistent decline in job postings that began in early 2022 showed signs of leveling off in Q3 2024. As of Oct. 18, job postings were 10.8% above pre-pandemic levels.
- Job posting trends within the broader transportation sector are mixed: Postings rose in the Logistic Support segment but declined in others.
- Annual posted wage growth for Driving roles slowed to just 0.5% in September.
- Pay transparency — measured as the share of job postings within a given sector that contain some information on proposed pay — was higher in all Transportation sectors than the rate across the overall labor market.
Indeed job postings
Despite being down 13% from a year earlier, the US Indeed Job Posting Index (JPI) remained 10.8% above pre-pandemic levels as of October 18. After declining consistently since early 2022, the US JPI showed signs of stabilization over the summer, hovering in a tight range between 10% and 13% above pre-pandemic norms for several months. This suggests that the cooling in demand for workers over the past several years has paused, at least for now, leaving some employers facing a bit less competition when looking to make hires.
Transportation job postings
The trends in Transportation job postings straddle either side of the overall labor market trend. Logistic Support is performing better than almost the entirety of the labor market, with job postings up 2.2% from the same time last year, and up nearly 25% from pre-pandemic norms. Meanwhile, job postings for Driving and Aviation jobs fell by 27.4% and 32.1%, respectively, from the same time a year ago. Despite the recent declines, postings in both the driving and aviation categories remain comfortably above pre-pandemic levels (+32.9% and +11.5%, respectively).
Transportation wage growth
While overall wage growth stabilized over the summer, growth across Transportation-specific sectors continued to slow. At 3.2% year-over-year, posted wage growth in the Loading & Stocking sector in September was essentially even with the overall labor market average. However, at just 0.5%, year-over-year wage growth for Drivers was much more modest in September, a marked slowdown since March, when annual wage growth for drivers was 2.7%.
Transportation pay transparency
While momentum towards higher levels of pay transparency may have slowed, a clear majority (57.8%) of job postings featured information on wage or salary in September. In fact, transparency across all Transportation sectors is higher than the overall labor market. Some 60.8% of Loading & Stocking job postings included some pay information in September, as did almost three quarters (72.7%) of postings for driving roles. Additionally, 62.3% of Logistic Support postings included some pay transparency, a vast improvement from the small minority (47.2%) of such postings as recently as September 2023.
For more labor market insights from the Indeed Hiring Lab, visit us at hiringlab.org.
