Complete Count of U.S. Transportation Workforce

Described are the development and application of an original methodology for a comprehensive and consistent count of transportation-related employment in the United States. In addition, the study represents a general example of how transportation analysts can effectively use and combine classification-based data to answer specific crosscutting questions. The method involved computing the union of two different sets of transportation employment data: transportation industry data, counting all workers in industries that provide or support transportation, and transportation occupational data, counting all workers performing transportation functions. A union, instead of a straightforward sum, was used to avoid double counting of workers employed in the defined transportation and transportation-related industries. A broad definition of transportation-related industries and occupations was used, allowing a complete accounting of employment generated by transportation in the economy. It was concluded that transportation industries account for 13 million workers, or about 10 percent of total nonfarm employment of 128.4 million, and transportation occupations outside of transportation industries accounted for another 3.5 million workers, or about an additional 3 percent of nonfarm employment. Thus, about 16.5 million workers either work directly in or support transportation activity in the U.S. economy; this constitutes about 13 percent—approximately 1 in 8 jobs—of the nonfarm workforce.