Local General Freight Trucking NAICS 484110

May 28, 2025 - Trucking Employment Relatively Flat in 2025

• Trucking industry employment remained flat throughout 2024 and that trend has continued into 2025. Employment fell a slight 1.8% year over year in March 2025, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). A significant driver shortage brought on by attrition through retirements and younger-employee burnout in a stressful and isolating job has been hampering the industry. Truck drivers are in high demand and paid well as a result. An analysis of industry job postings by freight factoring company altLINE estimates that there is an ongoing deficit of 24,000 drivers. When combined with the average $3,900 per week a truck makes in revenue (using trucking giant Schneider National’s reported earnings), the staff shortage costs the freight industry $95 million a week.
• The US House of Representatives and the Senate voted in May 2025 to undo waivers from the Environmental Protection Agency that allowed California to set aggressive vehicle pollution standards in its state. It is the latest attempt by Congress to set aside California’s mandates for trucking’s transformation to electric vehicles (EVs) and its plan for 35% of new automobiles sold to be zero-emission. California is one of the nation’s biggest auto markets and a dozen other states, who can’t set standards of their own, nevertheless followed California’s lead on EVs. Accordingly, roughly 30% of the US auto market could be affected since they followed the Golden State’s lead. Trucking trade associations and auto makers, who have long felt the targets were unrealistic and overly aggressive, supported the move. The bill now heads to Trump for a signature, while California has indicated it might sue to get the rules reinstated.

• A new report from the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association’s Research Foundation (OOIDA) questions the conventional wisdom that a driver shortage is to blame for industry woes, and instead points to structural issues causing a sometimes 90% annual turnover rate for truckload carriers. OOIDA notes that staff shortages usually lead to higher wages, but that isn’t happening in trucking due to factors hampering wage growth including extreme competition among carriers; limited collective bargaining power of drivers; increased labor pools from industry and government initiatives: and new drivers fostering misconceptions about pay and conditions when they sign on, leading to turnover when those expectations aren’t realized. Average wages for non-supervisory employees in the industry remained largely flat throughout 2024, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• Trucking executives are increasingly optimistic that the industry will find its way out of a prolonged, post-pandemic downturn in 2025. Shipping rates and volume have consistently been down amidst increased costs as consumer behavior after Covid has shifted away from buying consumer goods and towards services such as travel and events, according to the American Trucking Association’s chief economist Bob Costello. He predicts consumer spending on goods will bounce back and increase about 3.3% in 2025, while services will fall to 2.2%, helping trucking companies slowly regain their footing. Other positive signs for trucking cited by Costello include rising inflation on services that could tip consumer habits back towards goods purchases, and a healthier housing market, which can be a boon to trucking companies with increased orders on home improvement supplies and building materials.