Despite rates steadily rising, the industry continues to shed trucking jobs due to several factors that have created both good and rough conditions simultaneously.
According to the latest federal data, more than 1,000 trucking jobs were eliminated in June. Since February 2023, employment in trucking has gone down in all but five months.
Most of the trucking job losses over the last three years can be attributed to a driver glut created by the coronavirus pandemic. The number of truck drivers peaked in 2022 after a surge of new carriers entered the market to capitalize on skyrocketing rates amid unusually high economic activity in the wake of the pandemic.
Once the world began to normalize, too many drivers on the road put downward pressure on rates, creating a nearly four-year freight recession. More than 120,000 trucking jobs have been wiped out since October 2022.
Spot rates have been rapidly increasing since the end of 2025. DAT Freight & Analytics’ numbers reveal spot load posts are up more than 60% year-over-year while truck posts are down 12%. Spot rates are up 21-36% from last year.
Truckstop.com is reporting dry van and refrigerated spot rates jumped sharply last week. Dry van rates reached an all-time high. Although flatbed rates softened, they are still just a few cents shy of the record.
Yet trucking jobs continue to leave the market.
Skyrocketing diesel prices have been eating into higher rates. Although fuel prices have been coming down, they are still about $1 higher than a year ago.
Newly implemented federal policies have also chipped away at truck capacity. Tens of thousands of drivers have been placed out of service for English language proficiency violations over the last year. A crackdown on non-domiciled CDLs was estimated to affect nearly 200,000 drivers. In May, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said 28,000 of those licenses have been canceled.
David Spencer, vice president of market intelligence at Arrive Logistics, suggested that the damage from the freight recession continues to wreak havoc on operations amid high rates.
“The decline in trucking employment amid the elevated rate environment illustrates the lasting impact multiple years of poor trucking conditions has had on carriers,” Spencer said. “Increased regulatory pressure is adding fuel to the fire, creating real driver availability problems. Elevated operating costs and a shifting landscape are limiting carriers’ ability to grow. The challenges are real, and continued rate increases may be needed to facilitate carrier’s to generate enough cashflow for carriers to recruit, hire and retain drivers.”
ACT Research’s Freight Rate Index shows a 13-point increase in May, a new record in the 17-year survey history. Its Driver Availability Index reached a five-year low in April.
ACT Research noted an aging Boomer demographic, a crackdown on chameleon carriers through Motus, and the Supreme Court broker liability decision likely contributed to tightening capacity and fewer trucking jobs.
“Though the freight cycle is beginning to kick into gear, it will likely be hard for fleets to expand capacity amid a more aggressive FMCSA targeting nondomicile drivers and a nationwide anti-immigration crackdown,” ACT Research in its June 2026 For-Hire Trucking Index report. “Higher rates make the case for higher driver pay, but that is easier said than done.”
Last month, Andrew King, director of operations at the OOIDA Foundation, noted that other important freight-generating sectors also experienced job losses. Most notably, manufacturing jobs were down. That situation has not improved.
“Manufacturing generates approximately 60% of all for-hire freight, so it’s the canary in the coal mines,” King said. “As manufacturing goes, so goes trucking.” LL
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