Despite a government shakedown of foreign truck drivers, trucking jobs ended the year down just slightly. Will 2026 see continued capacity tightening?
According to the latest numbers from the federal government, trucking jobs remained stagnant in December. For the year, there were 3,500 fewer truck drivers on the road.
This marks the third consecutive year ending with fewer trucking jobs. However, the purge of excess drivers stemming from peak capacity in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic is waning.
More than 53,000 truck drivers were booted from the industry in 2023. That was largely due to Yellow taking down more than 30,000 jobs in its collapse that year. In 2024, nearly 18,000 truck driver positions were eliminated.
Many in the industry anticipated a significant reduction in trucking jobs as the federal government cracks down on non-domiciled CDL holders and strengthens enforcement of English-proficiency regulations. Those numbers are starting to trickle in.
In December, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy claimed that 9,500 drivers had been placed out of service for English-proficiency violations. While OOS violations ramped up in September and October, they quickly went back down.
More than 17,000 non-domiciled CDLs are on the chopping block in California alone. However, the state has yet to revoke those licenses. The Department of Transportation has put several other states on notice to fix “serious failures” regarding non-domiciled CDLs. If states take the DOT’s threats seriously, thousands of trucking jobs could be lost in 2026.
Any trucking job losses in December were offset by a hike in truckload rates.
David Spencer, vice president of market intelligence at Arrive Logistics, suggested that carriers may be waiting for sustained rate increases before making any employment decisions.
“The sudden improvement in truckload rates in December may be enough to encourage a more wait-and-see approach from carriers as it pertains to employment this year; however, seasonal demand slowdowns later in Q1 could test their patience,” Spencer said. “If tighter conditions persist, that could spark hiring, but I would not count on that until we see elevated rates persist beyond the typical period of tightness in early January.”
Trucking jobs ebbed and flowed throughout the year as tariff policies created some turmoil. In March, thousands of additional truck drivers entered the market as businesses frontloaded inventories in anticipation of new tariffs. That was the largest monthly gain in nearly three years.
The entire transportation sector experienced a fourth consecutive monthly job loss. Significant reductions in warehousing/storage and support activities for transportation erased gains in other subsectors.
There were only four months of growth in the sector. For the year, nearly 60,000 transportation jobs were lost. This marks just the second annual job loss in the sector in the last decade (down nearly 14,000 in 2023). Before 2023, the sector experienced growth every year since 2010. During the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009, more than 150,000 and nearly 275,000 jobs were lost, respectively.
Across all industries, 55,000 jobs were added to the economy. That is just slightly below projections of 55,000 jobs. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.4% from 4.5% in November. For the transportation sector, unemployment is at 3.6%, 0.7 percentage points lower than December 2024. LL
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