The American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) trucking index decreased 0.9% following an upwardly revised increase of 3.1 % in July.

From ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello:

After such a robust July, it is not too surprising that tonnage took a breather in August. The dip after a strong gain goes with the up and down pattern we’ve seen this year. As I said last month, I remain concerned about the high level of inventories throughout the supply chain. This could have a negative impact on truck freight volumes over the next few months.

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Compared with one year ago, seasonally adjusted tonnage increased 2.1 %.

Econintersect tries to validate data across data sources. It appears this month that jobs growth says the trucking industry increased 0.0 % month-over-month (red line). Please note using BLS employment data in real time is risky, as their data is normally backward adjusted significantly.

This data series is not transparent and therefore cannot be relied on. Please note that the ATA does not release an unadjusted data series (although they report the unadjusted value each month – but do not report revisions to this data) where Econintersect can make an independent evaluation. The data is apparently subject to significant backward revision. Not all trucking companies are members of the ATA, and therefore it is unknown if this data is a representative sampling of the trucking industry.

Source: ATA