The transportation industry includes air, rail, road, and water travel, and its core business is transporting passengers and moving freight.
Each branch of the transportation industry employs workers in a variety of positions, from managers who coordinate shipping schedules to freight handlers to customer service representatives to conductors and even safety inspectors. Many workers are needed just to operate and maintain the various means of transportation, such as drivers, pilots, mechanics, and engineers.
The nature of transportation changes often, spurred by increasingly efficient vehicles, market competition, and public desire for new modes of travel and to reach new destinations. Overall the industry has grown steadily in recent decades, though transportation businesses tend to be very sensitive to economic setbacks. Job opportunities are, therefore, generally good, and employees’ prospects are stable. Advances in transportation technology may eliminate some jobs, but they also create new employment opportunities for people with technological training. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the transportation industry found itself facing a new challenge—coping with the threat of terrorism. This has instigated changes within the industry and has also been a source of economic difficulty for some transportation businesses. The U.S. Department of Labor offers the following employment predictions by industry through 2014: air transportation, more slowly than the average; rail transportation, decline; road transportation, about as fast as the average; and water transportation, more slowly than the average.
Read the individual article for each transportation branch for more details and specific outlook information.
Related Career Fields:
- Airline Career Field
- Railroad Career Field
- Shipping Career Field
- Travel and Tourism Career Field
- Trucking Career Field
Related Careers:
- Air Traffic Controllers
- Airplane Dispatchers
- Civil Engineering Technicians
- Civil Engineers
- Customs Officials
- Diesel Mechanics
- Flight Attendants
- Helicopter Pilots
- Industrial Traffic Managers
- Locomotive Engineers
- Merchant Mariners
- Pilots
- Public Transportation Operators
- Railroad Clerks
- Railroad Conductors
- Reservation and Ticket Agents
- Route Drivers
- Signal Mechanics
- Stevedores
- Taxi Drivers
- Toll Collectors
- Traffic Engineers
- Truck Drivers
- Urban and Regional Planners