The logistics hiring spree may be losing some of its momentum. The transportation and logistics sector lost 3,000 jobs from January to February, the WSJ Logistics Report's Jennifer Smith writes, including a cutback of 9,700 jobs in courier businesses heavily exposed to retail and e-commerce sales. Shipping-focused hiring normally pulls back in the first quarter, but the seasonally-adjusted retreat in the parcel sector was unusually steep and came along with other signs of sliding jobs growth that may signal clouds in the economic climate. Goods-producing industries cut payrolls by 32,000 jobs while manufacturing, retail and construction all showed weaker hiring. Still, warehouse operators added 3,900 jobs last month even though hiring slowed, and storage businesses have added around 78,000 jobs in the past 12 months. The strong expansion in parcel, trucking and logistics jobs over the past year gives the sector room to pause for a month. 

Supermarkets and restaurants are getting an expensive lesson in the economics of cheap delivery. The cost of delivering goods to consumers’ homes is proving to be a thorny yet crucial puzzle for food businesses, the WSJ’s Heather Haddon and Julie Jargon report, as companies spend billions to build services to reliably move fresh food while they watch profit margins for deliveries crumble and collapse. The problem highlights the growing profile of logistics in the food sector as home delivery claims more attention from food companies and consumers. It costs supermarkets an average of $10 an order to deliver food and they only recoup around $8 from customers because charging more risks losing shoppers. The economic riddle can be even tougher for restaurants, where delivery costs can eat up a big share of each order. Companies are tolerating the losses, for now, because store sales are mostly stagnant. 

New Sears has inventory problems left over from old Sears. The retailer bought in bankruptcy by investor Edward Lampert says the old company shortchanged it on prepaid inventory by some $78 million, the WSJ’s Lillian Rizzo reports, adding to the discord at the new business that includes a new dispute with major supplier Stanley Black & Decker Inc. over its Craftsman brand. The new company that operates Sears and Kmart stores is known as Transform Holdco LLC, and it claims the old business delayed payments to vendors, mischaracterized credit-card receivables and didn’t acquire the promised amount inventory. Conflicts over inventory have been playing out as retailers troubled by changing consumer shopping patterns have paraded into bankruptcy court, but disputes typically are worked out in restructuring plans. The fresh disputes suggest that rolling out a new Sears could be as messy as closing down the old one.

A fire that killed 70 people in Bangladesh’s capital last month exposes an overlooked danger in the international apparel supply chain. The blaze tore through a neighborhood in Dhaka began in an apartment block where chemicals for cosmetics were stored and nearly ignited the building’s basement warehouse of clothing dye, the WSJ’s Jon Emont and Refayet Ullah Mirdha report. The tragedy comes as brands are pushing garment makers pushed to improve treatment of workers and factory conditions at sites at the heart of the global textile business. Problems deeper in the supply chains remain untouched as thousands of legal and illegal chemical warehouses and factories operate in a packed residential area marked filled with rickety apartment buildings. The government has ordered all the warehouses to be relocated, but without much oversight that will only spread the dangers around and make the storage sites even more difficult to control.

U.S. wages rose in February at the fastest pace since April 2009. (WSJ)

Canada reported a surprising net gain of 55,900 jobs in February. (WSJ)

Home building in the U.S. rose a robust 18.6% in January. (WSJ)

Auto sales in China fell 15% in the first two months of the year. (WSJ)

Turkey’s economy shrank 3% in the fourth quarter and looks set to contract further this year. (WSJ)

An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing Co. 737 MAX 8 crashed shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa, killing all 157 aboard. (WSJ)

China ordered all Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft in the country grounded following the crash in Ethiopia. (WSJ)

Lawyers for Stanley Black & Decker say the former finance chief at bankrupt freight payments company IPS Worldwide LLC has been sued over alleged bogus expense reports and done prison time. (WSJ)

Federal regulators warned Southwest Airlines Co. and its mechanics their labor dispute threatens to damage safety practices. (WSJ)

Real-estate brokers say landlords won’t let Tesla Inc. off the hook for store leases as the car maker shifts its sales online. (WSJ)

The maker of LaCroix sparkling water reported a drop in quarterly sales for the first time in five years. (WSJ)

Amazon has stopped buying products from many suppliers, pushing them instead to sell to consumers directly on the firm’s marketplace. (Bloomberg)

Emerson Electric Co. is reversing an earlier retrenchment by expanding U.S. operations and planning to add three plants in the country. (Reuters)

Walmart Inc. opened a 1.25 million-square-foot apparel distribution center in Bentonville, Ark. (TalkBusiness)

Logistics executives say more shippers are considering moving operations from the U.K. to Europe after Brexit. (Lloyd’s Loading List)

Former Federal Railroad Administration and Amtrak leader Joseph Boardman died after suffering a stroke. (Progressive Railroading)

The White House named Acting Federal Maritime Commission Chairman Michael Khouri to the post on a permanent basis. (American Shipper)

Shipping technology company Navis acquired container terminal systems provider Octopi. (Port Technology)

Canada’s AltaGas expects British Columbia’s first propane export terminal to open in the second quarter. (Terrace Standard)

Truck maker Navistar International Corp. swung to an $11 million first-quarter profit on a  28% gain in revenue. (Barron’s)

Nodal Exchange, Freightwaves and DAT Solutions LLC will jointly launch a trucking freight futures exchange on March 29. (DC Velocity)

China’s Sichuan Airlines Cargo will launch its first freighter flight to Europe in April. (Air Cargo News)

FedEx Corp. is testing the busing of workers from two hours away in Mississippi to its Memphis, Tenn., express hub. (Memphis Commercial Appeal)

Paul Page is editor of WSJ Logistics Report. Write to him at paul.page@wsj.com.

Follow the WSJ Logistics Report team: @PaulPage, @jensmithWSJ, @CostasParis. Follow the WSJ Logistics Report on Twitter at @WSJLogistics.