The gains you see here over the past five months square up nicely with what we have been reading about the building of business inventories. This is where the inventories first get processed.
And, we know from looking at some of the trade data, that imports of both consumer and industrial goods accelerated in the second half of last year in an effort to beat what are expected to be higher tariffs in 2019. Those goods had to go somewhere. And where they went was to warehouses. And this category of employment tracks hiring at those facilities.
