Job Creation and Job Destruction Dynamics in the U.S. Truck Transportation Industry, 1995-2019

Jason W. Miller (), Jonathan Phares () and Stephen Burks
Additional contact information
Jason W. Miller: Michigan State University
Jonathan Phares: Iowa State University

No 16184, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Every year, approximately 27% of all jobs in the U.S. truck transportation sector (NAICS 484) are reshuffled across motor carriers as existing carriers grow or shrink, new entrants begin operations, and existing firms exit. Studying how these dynamics unfold, especially for young carriers, is critical to further our understanding of employment dynamics in the U.S. trucking industry. This manuscript takes a first look at job creation and job destruction dynamics in truck transportation, with a special emphasis on the roles of carrier age and on job creation and destruction dynamics in the manufacturing sector, the source of demand for most trucking ton-miles. In doing so, we draw on and extend theory in both supply chain management and economics. We test our predictions using archival data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Business Dynamics Statistics program that tracks the universe of truck transportation firms with employee establishments from 1995 through 2019, focusing on firms that are ten years old or younger. Results from fitting a series of linear mixed effects models provide strong evidence that job creation and job destruction dynamics at trucking firms decline rapidly as carriers age. We further find these age-related dynamics are moderated by employment dynamics in the manufacturing sector. We discuss implications of these findings for theory and practice.

Keywords: business dynamics statistics; job creation; job destruction; motor carrier; U.S. trucking industry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J21 J63 L92 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 52 pages
Date: 2023-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent, nep-lma and nep-mfd
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - revised version published as 'Job Gain and Job Loss Dynamics in the Truck Transportation Industry' in: Journal of Business Logistics, 2024, 45 (3), e123912024

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp16184.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16184

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().