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Economic Watch: Job Growth Continues as Manufacturing Improves
New figures show employers in the U.S. continue to add people to their payrolls at a healthy pace. And there is mounting evidence that the nation's manufacturing sector is coming out of the doldrums as businesses increase their investment in capital goods.
Employment in the U.S. continued along its path of gains last month, with a Labor Department report released Friday showing 227,000 nonfarm jobs were added in January. The number of jobs added during the month is the highest since September. Trucking, however, trimmed its employment rolls.
The number of overall job additions was far more than the 175,000 forecast by a poll of analysts. At the same time, the unemployment rate inched up to 4.8% as more people began looking for work.
As for trucking there were 1,400 job losses last month in the for-hire sector, contributing to an overall 4,000-job loss in the wider transportation and warehousing sector. However, unlike trucking, the warehousing and storage niche added 9,400 jobs during the month, while 7,400 jobs were cut from the couriers and messengers category.
Outside of transportation, the overall gain largely reflected construction employment soaring 36,000 after a 2,000 gain in December, while manufacturing employment rose a modest 5,000 compared to the 11,000 gain the previous month.
Overall wage growth in January moderated to an average of 3 cents per hour compared to double that number in December. However, over the past 12 months average wages are up 2.5%, only slightly higher than the level of retail inflation, and down from the December 12-month rate of a 2.8% increase.
“Today's report indicates continued robust increases in employment going into 2017,” said Paul Ferley, assistant chief economist at RBC Economics. “Such bodes well for overall gross domestic product growth to continue at an above-potential rate as prevailed over the second half of 2016.”
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Aljex releases Inbound Document Portal
Aljex Software announced the release of its Inbound Document Portal (IDP). The IDP is a web-based application that facilitates the administration of receiving documents.
“The IDP makes handling inbound documents faster and easier than ever,” said Tom Heine, CEO of Aljex. “You can look at a document once and be done with it.”
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Raptors head to China
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More medical conditions mean more crashes: Driver study
Drivers with several health issues, such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure, are more likely to be involved in a crash than truckers with only one condition.
While this conclusion may seem obvious, the numbers are striking. Of about 38,000 drivers whose medical and crash records were studied, those with three or more ailments had a crash frequency of 93 incidents per million miles compared to 29 per million miles for all drivers.
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Styline Logistics signs with Bolt System
Styline Logistics announced it has contracted with Bolt System to provide a new fleet management system.
Styline Logistics, with more than 170 company trucks and 20 independent contractors, is a specialized LTL furniture carrier providing nationwide coverage to the 48 contiguous states.
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NRMCA members can save on qualifying Kenworth vocational trucks
Kenworth will provide a $1,000 savings to fellow National Ready Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA) members on qualifying purchases of new Kenworth T880, W900, T440 or T470 vocational trucks through the association's M2M Benefits Program.
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