Rail Jobs Fall in June

The largest railroads operating in the U.S. shed another 1,922 jobs from mid-May to mid-June, leaving 11,575 fewer rail jobs than six months ago.

The mid-June numbers, reported by Class I carriers to the Surface Transportation Board, show the railroads with 149,614 employees, compared with 161,189 in mid-December.

The June total is the lowest for at least the past decade, based on the STB reports. But Class Is shed fewer jobs than in the mid-April to mid-May period when they cut 2,727 from their payrolls.

Railroad executives in their quarterly earnings remarks this week are saying freight markets appear to be stabilizing from the sharp declines, and Union Pacific says it is storing away somewhat fewer locomotives and rail cars.

Yet at least through mid-June all but one of the carriers were still cutting their U.S. workforce, with Canadian National Railway the exception.

In keeping with recent trends, railroads are most heavily cutting train and engine workers. That is the industry’s largest job category, and employment in that group of engineers and conductors is down 17.5 percent from the same point in 2008. Carriers cut another 1.7 percent of those jobs in the latest month alone.

The STB reports date back to the 1960s, and offer a snapshot of the workforce as of the first payroll period in each month. Carriers then mail in the written reports to the agency, which compiles and reports them on its Web site.

Carriers’ workforce numbers can change from attrition or new hires, by selling or buying line segments or by the railroads’ laying off workers as now because of reduced freight traffic.

An STB index of the latest job level puts mid-June Class I employment at 24.6 percent of the 1967 average, down from 24.9 percent a month earlier and 26.2 percent in January.

Click here for the latest report, including employment levels by carrier.

Contact John D. Boyd at jboyd@joc.com.