A container ship at Port Newark. (John Munson | NJ Advance Media)

By Steve Strunsky | NJ Advance Media

NEWARK — The amount of containers that traveled through the Port of New York and New Jersey grew 9 percent from 2014 to 2016, driving job growth and increasing income and tax revenues from the ports, according to a bi-annual report released this week.

The growth in cargo and jobs translated into increases in personal and business incomes, which in turn boosted local, state and federal tax revenues, according to the report, which was compiled jointly by the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, a regional panel of county officials who review federal funding of transportation projects, and the New York Shipping Association, a port industry group.

The shipping association's President John Nardi said the report affirms the terminals "provide a substantial benefit to the region in terms of jobs and tax dollars and those benefits continue to grow."

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is essentially the landlord for NYSA members, whose terminals are located in Newark, Elizabeth, Jersey City, Bayonne, Staten Island and Brooklyn.

Amy Goldsmith, chair of the Coalition for Healthy Ports, cautioned that cargo growth would also mean increased emissions from the thousands of aging diesel trucks that carry shipping containers in and out of the port if offsetting measures were not put in place. Specifically, Goldsmith criticized the Port Authority for retreating from tightened truck emissions standards this year.

"On one level, you can say congratulations," Goldsmith said of Thursday's report. "But on the other, they have done nothing to mitigate the growing impact on the port communities."

Here's a look at the report on the ports by the numbers.

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A "switcher" at Port Newark helped secure a shipping container onto a truck chassis. (John Munson | NJ Advance Media)

400,000 port-related jobs, up 20%

According to the study, port businesses and agencies employ 229,000 workers and support another 171,000 indirect jobs. The jobs includes longshoremen who work on the docks, truckers who haul containers in and out of the port, shipping clerks, mechanics, warehouse workers, tug operators, port police and inspectors, and others whose jobs are directly related to port operations or dependent on them.

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Shipping containers at a terminal in Elizabeth. (Aris Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media)

6.25 million shipping container units, up 8.3%

Shipping containers come in two basic sizes: the more common 40-foot-long container; and 20-foot units. Because of the variety of container sizes, the overall volume of containerized cargo is measured in so-called "twenty-foot equivalency units," or TEUs, which represent a single 20-foot-long container. A 40-foot container counts as 2 TEU's.

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An employee of the Port Elizabeth Terminal and Warehouse along Newark Bay shovels grain, which is still sometimes shipped in bulk. However, this grain was being moved from a rail car to a shipping container. (Patti Sapone | Star-Ledger file photo)

47 million tons of bulk cargo, up 11%

Bulk cargo is carried not in shipping containers but rather in cargo holds, and includes such commodities as oil and grain.

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(Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media)

663,000 vehicles, up 3.5%

Toyotas, BMWs and other makes of cars are driven directly off specially-made transport ships onto the docks in Newark, where hundreds of identical models are parked in formation.

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140,000 tons of break bulk cargo, up 27%

Break bulk cargo includes goods or commodities shipped on pallets, in bundles or individually, such as steel beams, sacks of coffee, and large pieces of machinery or project components.

Since more efficient containerization was adopted by the shipping industry worldwide in the 1960's, break bulk cargo volumes have declined sharply, though some smaller ports that cannot accommodate container ships still handle break bulk cargo and it still makes sense to ship some cargo in that way.

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Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas returned to the Port Liberty cruise port in Bayonne in February 2016. (Robert Sciarrino | NJ Advance Media)

260 cruise vessels, down 4.8%

There was a 4.8 percent decline in the number of cruise ships steaming in and out of the port in 2016 compared to two years earlier. That was the only decline compared to 2014 in the report, which did not identify any specific reasons for the drop.

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At Maher Terminal in Elizabeth, longshoremen walked through the parking lot. (Steve Strunsky | NJ Advance Media)

$25.7 billion in personal income, up 21 percent

Pay varies widely at the port, from highly-paid shipping company executives and union longshoremen, to independent truckers who pay for their own gas, get few benefits, and sometimes wait for extended periods at a congested terminal to pick up or drop off a container.

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Shipping cranes at the Maher Terminals dock in Elizabeth in January 2016. (John Munson | NJ Advance Media)

$63.8 billion in business revenues, up 21 percent

Terminal operators who profit from the port pay a container fee to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The money is spent on port-wide projects and facilities, including a freight rail network intended to reduce truck emissions.

"Our goal is to continue to invest in infrastructure that will make this port the most attractive place for shippers to do business," Molly Campbell, the bi-state agency's director of ports, said in a statement.

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School buses were used to transport demonstrators to the port for a rally in May 2016 to demand more Newark residents be hired there. (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media)

$8.5 billion in federal, state and local tax revenues, up 20%

Just as most of the activity at the bi-state port takes place in New Jersey, most of the tax revenues it generates go to local and state governments in New Jersey. More than $7 billion out of the $8.5 billion in public revenues generated by the port goes to New Jersey, the report said.

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Kim Gaddy, a Newark activist, at a July 2016 rally calling for Newark residents to get more of the jobs created at the port, which generates emissions that harm the residents who live near there. (Patti Sapone | NJ Advance Media)

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CORRECTION: The NYSE initially reported the total number of jobs dependent on the port to be 440,000, but later corrected the figure to be 400,000.

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.