Department of Labor Logo United States Department of Labor
Dot gov

The .gov means it's official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you're on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Trade, Transportation, and Utilities

About the Trade, Transportation, and Utilities supersector

The trade, transportation, and utilities supersector is part of the service-providing industries supersector group.

The trade, transportation, and utilities supersector consists of these sectors:

Workforce Statistics

This section provides information relating to employment in trade, transportation, and utilities. These data are obtained from employer or establishment surveys. The following tables present an overview of the industry including the number of jobs, job openings and labor turnover, and projections of occupational employment change.

Employment and Openings, Hires, and Separations

Data series Back
data
Nov.
2023
Dec.
2023
Jan.
2024
Feb.
2024

Employment (in thousands)

Employment, all employees (seasonally adjusted)

28,843 28,867 (p)28,852 (p)28,892

Employment, production and nonsupervisory employees (seasonally adjusted)

24,340 24,363 (p)24,356 (p)24,384

Job openings, hires, and separations (in thousands)

Job openings

1,247 1,260 (p)928  

Hires

1,373 933 (p)935  

Separations

1,057 1,107 (p)1,286  

Footnotes
(p) Preliminary

(Source: Current Employment Statistics, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey)

Projections

For projected (future) employment estimates in trade, transportation, and utilities, see the Employment and projected employment by major industry sector table.

(Source: Office of Occupational Statistics and Employment Projections)

Earnings and Hours

This section presents data on employee earnings and weekly hours. The latest industry averages of hourly earnings and weekly hours are shown. This section also contains information on the average cost of benefits paid by employers, as well as recent rates of change in wages and total compensation.

Earnings and Hours of All Employees

Data series Back
data
Nov.
2023
Dec.
2023
Jan.
2024
Feb.
2024

Average hourly earnings

$29.43 $29.61 (p)$29.71 (p)$29.71

Average weekly hours

33.9 33.9 (p)33.6 (p)33.9

Footnotes
(p) Preliminary

(Source: Current Employment Statistics)

Earnings and Hours of Production and Nonsupervisory Employees

Data series Back
data
Nov.
2023
Dec.
2023
Jan.
2024
Feb.
2024

Average hourly earnings

$25.56 $25.64 (p)$25.80 (p)$25.92

Average weekly hours

33.9 34.0 (p)33.8 (p)34.0

Footnotes
(p) Preliminary

(Source: Current Employment Statistics)

Employee Benefits

This section presents data on the incidence (the percentage of workers with access to and participation in employer-provided benefit plans) and provisions of selected employee benefits from the National Compensation Survey. More Benefits estimates are also accessible from the Benefits database, the archived NCS publications page, and the complete Employee Benefits Excel dataset (XLSX).

Data series Access Participation
Back
data
2023 Back
data
2023

Private industry

Retirement benefit plans

79 51

Defined benefit plans

18 14

Defined contribution plans

72 43

(Source: Employee Benefits in the United States)

Data series After 1 year of service After 20 years of service
Back
data
2023 Back
data
2023

Mean number of vacation days for private industry workers without consolidated leave plans

7 18

(Source: Employee Benefits in the United States)

Data series Back
data
2023

Percent of private industry workers with access to employer-sponsored benefits

Health care

71

Paid vacation

81

Paid sick leave

78

(Source: Employee Benefits in the United States)

Employer Compensation Costs

Data series Back
data
1st quarter
2023
2nd quarter
2023
3rd quarter
2023
4th quarter
2023

Private industry

12-month percent change

Total compensation

4.4% 4.3% 4.3% 4.6%

Wages and salaries

4.6% 4.4% 4.4% 4.8%

3-month percent change

Total compensation

1.3% 1.4% 0.7% 1.1%

Wages and salaries

1.2% 1.4% 0.8% 1.3%

(Source: Compensation Cost Trends)

Data series Private industry
Compensation component
($ per hour worked)
Percent of total compensation
Back
data
4th quarter 2023 Back
data
4th quarter 2023

Total compensation

35.91 100.0

Wages and salaries

25.78 71.8

Total benefits

10.13 28.2

Insurance

2.58 7.2

Retirement

1.32 3.7

Paid leave

2.34 6.5

(Source: Compensation Cost Trends)

Work-related Fatalities, Injuries, and Illnesses

This section presents data for the industry on the number of workplace fatalities and the rates of workplace injuries and illnesses per 100 full-time workers in trade, transportation, and utilities. An injury or illness is considered to be work-related if an event or exposure in the work environment either caused or contributed to the resulting condition or significantly aggravated a pre-existing condition.

Data series 2019 2020 2021 2022

Fatalities

Number of fatalities

1,456 1,304 1,511 1,618

Blank cells indicate no data reported or data that do not meet publication criteria.

Data series 2022

Rate of injury and illness cases per 100 full-time workers

Total recordable cases

3.7

Cases involving days away from work, job restriction, or transfer

2.6

Cases involving days away from work

1.7

Cases involving days of job transfer or restriction

1.0

Blank cells indicate no data reported or data that do not meet publication criteria.

(Source: Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities)

Workplace Trends

This section presents data on the number of establishments in trade, transportation, and utilities.

Establishments

Data series Back
data
4th quarter
2022
1st quarter
2023
2nd quarter
2023
3rd quarter
2023

Number of establishments

Private industry

2,048,400 (p)2,048,255 (p)2,057,617 (p)2,071,289

Local government

12,038 (p)12,060 (p)12,056 (p)12,052

State government

969 (p)965 (p)968 (p)968

Federal government

30,298 (p)30,349 (p)30,468 (p)30,747

Footnotes
(p) Preliminary

(Source: Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages)

 

Data extracted on: March 15, 2024