Supply Chain Research

U.S. non-farm payrolls grew by 1.4% year over year in August, with the logistics and transportation sector seeing growth of 2.2%. The latter was the slowest since Feb. 2014 and was down to an accelerating downturn in rail employment and lower growth in both trucking and warehousing jobs. The seaborne sector saw growth of just 0.3% after four months of declining employment. A further recovery may be unlikely near term given U.S. seaborne imports may have fallen by 0.6% year over year in August and given global trade and business sentiment is worsening.