Trucking Companies
Industry Profile Report
Dive Deep into the industry with a 25+ page industry report (pdf format) including the following chapters
Industry Overview Current Conditions, Industry Structure, How Firms Operate, Industry Trends, Credit Underwriting & Risks, and Industry Forecast.
Call Preparation Call Prep Questions, Industry Terms, and Weblinks.
Financial Insights Working Capital, Capital Financing, Business Valuation, and Financial Benchmarks.
Industry Profile Excerpts
Industry Overview
The 147,000 trucking companies in the US provide transportation services for a wide variety of goods. The majority of truck loads are full Truck Loads (TL), meaning a single customer fills the entire trailer. About 27.5% of loads are Less Than Full Truck Loads (LTL), where freight from multiple customers is consolidated into one trailer.
High Failure Rate
Small trucking start-ups have a high failure rate, with an estimated 85% failing before their second year of operation, according to the National Association of Small Trucking Companies.
Limited Driver Hours
The federal Hours of Service (HOS) rules dictate how long a driver can be on duty and behind the wheel.
Industry size & Structure
A typical trucking company operates out of a single location, employs fewer than 10 workers and generates about $3-4 million annually.
- The trucking industry consists of 147,000 companies, employs 1.1 million workers and generates over $459 billion in annual revenue.
- 88% of trucking companies operate out of a single location.
- One in 4 drivers is an independent owner-operator who owns their truck and contracts out services to trucking companies.
- About 80% of trucking establishments employ fewer than 10 workers.
- Large companies include UPS, FedEx, DHL, YRC Worldwide, Ryder, XPO Logistics (Con-way), Penske Truck Leasing, and JB Hunt Transport Services.
Industry Forecast
Trucking Companies Industry Growth
Recent Developments
Feb 7, 2025 - Driver Shortage Keeps Employment Flat, Wages Up
- Trucking industry employment has remained flat throughout 2024, while average wages for nonsupervisory employees increased nominally to an average of $30.36 an hour, 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. Going forward, the US government’s threat to soon slap heavy tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods - two huge partners in transportation manufacturing - could drive up costs and trigger job cuts in the freight hauling industry.
- The trucking industry’s transformation from diesel-powered fleets to environmentally cleaner electric versions came to an abrupt halt when the second Trump administration ended the federal government’s EV mandates in January 2025. The changes were widely expected, so much so that California - the country’s most aggressive testing ground for EV mandates - preemptively killed its new rules that would have drastically reduced emissions and boosted funding for building related charging station infrastructure. With a new government in power that is hostile towards the industry’s EV transformation, the uncertainty surrounding mandates and the expectation that the EPA will no longer support the moves throws trucking’s electric vehicle transformation effort into doubt.
- The truckload market enters 2025 showing signs of stabilization after nearly three years of freight recession, according to FreightWaves. Earnings remain depressed across the sector, but FreightWaves notes that Susquehanna analyst Bascome Majors sees reasons for optimism that the industry is poised for recovery over the next two years. Majors said in an early January 2025 client note that “tangible signs of progress are still incremental – a holiday peak with seasonal lifts in tender rejection rates and slightly super-seasonal dry van spot rates reveal more optimism toward one-way truckload contract price recovery this bid season.”
- Truck freight shipments and spending continued to contract in the third quarter of 2024, albeit at a slower pace than earlier this year, according to the US Bank Freight Payment Index. shipments decreased 1.9% compared to the previous quarter while spending decreased 1.4%. It was the ninth consecutive quarterly decrease in volume but the smallest drop in more than a year.
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