The U.S. Transportation and Warehousing sector appears to employ significantly more workers than previously estimated, according to new preliminary benchmark revisions released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The agency said its revised estimates indicate that there were 135,100 more workers in Transportation and Warehousing in March 2026 than assumed under the employment model currently used for the agency’s 2026 reports.
The adjustment represents a 2% difference from the existing model, making it the second-largest percentage revision among the sectors covered in the update, whether upward or downward. Only the Information sector recorded a larger proportional adjustment, rising by 3%.
At the other end of the scale, Wholesale Trade posted the largest downward revision, with employment adjusted lower by 1.4%.
The BLS’s broader benchmark estimates suggest that total private-sector employment is 178,000 jobs lower than indicated by the current model, while government employment is 99,000 jobs higher. Combined, the revisions point to an overall estimate of 79,000 fewer jobs than the figures currently incorporated into the model.
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Despite the downward adjustment, the revision is the smallest downward revision recorded in three years.
One important limitation of the annual BLS benchmark revision is that it does not provide a breakdown of changes at the subsector level. As a result, there is currently no indication of how the revised 2026 model affects individual segments such as truck transportation, rail transportation or warehousing.
Transportation and Warehousing covers a broad range of activities. In addition to trucking, rail and warehousing, the sector includes air transportation, water transportation, transit and ground passenger transportation, pipeline transportation, scenic and sightseeing transportation, support activities for transportation, and couriers and messengers.
Among these subsectors, warehousing and storage accounts for the largest number of jobs, with employment reaching 1.835 million in July. Truck transportation ranked second, with 1.465 million jobs.
Overall, the Transportation and Warehousing sector employed approximately 6.6 million workers in July.
Aaron Terrazas, an independent economist specializing in labor markets who also has a background in transportation, said last year’s downward revision had provided an early warning sign of changing labor market conditions.
According to Terrazas, the previous revision “was the first data canary hinting at a softening labor market — a trend that continued through late 2025 and early 2026.”
However, the substantial upward revision for Transportation and Warehousing stands out from the broader picture.
Terrazas described the increase as an “outlier,” suggesting that payrolls in the sector may have been somewhat stronger, even as employment data across most other industries pointed toward softer payroll conditions.
Because the BLS has not yet released details about the subsectors behind the adjustment, it remains unclear which areas of transportation contributed most to the additional 135,100 jobs.
Terrazas said that the growing number of carrier exits makes it unlikely that trucking was the main force behind the projected employment gains across the broader sector.
“My hunch is that parcel delivery services and perhaps taxi services were the primary drivers of the upward revision,” he said in an email to FreightWaves.
Calendar for the rollout
The revised employment model will not immediately appear in the monthly employment reports.
The changes are expected to become visible when the January employment figures are released in February, by which point the preliminary benchmark estimates will have undergone further revisions and been incorporated into a final new baseline model.
Once that updated baseline is available, comparing the revised employment figures with the numbers originally reported by the BLS should provide a clearer picture of how individual sectors contributed to the 135,100-job upward adjustment in Transportation and Warehousing.
The next U.S. employment report is scheduled for release on Friday, September 4.
