Between the years of 1951 and 1972, railroad industry employment declined by an average of more than 40,000 US railway jobs per year. US Railroad employment stabilized in the mid-to-late 1990s.

Pressures to operate more efficiently left some freight railroads unprepared for the recent surge in rail demand since 2003. For example, Union Pacific, the country’s largest railroad, hired approximately 5,000 employees (an increase of more than 10%) between 2003 and 2005 in response to this demand.