The trucking industry lost significantly more truck drivers in the past two years than previously thought, putting the number of trucking jobs right back where it was just before the pandemic hit nearly five years ago.
Each year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revises the past five years of employment data in its January report. According to revised numbers, nearly 70,000 trucking jobs were eliminated from the economy in 2023 and 2024, up from the initially reported 41,000 jobs.
In 2021 and 2022, a flood of truck drivers entered the market to take advantage of high rates in the wake of the pandemic. After trucking jobs peaked in July 2022, the industry has been purging itself of excess drivers.
There are 70,000 fewer truckers now than there were at that peak, with 16,500 lost last year and 53,000 in 2023. Last month’s report showed only 42,000 fewer jobs compared to July 2022, 6,000 lost last year and 35,000 in 2023. Old numbers showed trucking job gains occurred in six months last year, whereas updated data reveals there were only three increases, two of which occurred at the end of the year.
Revised data suggests that the trucking industry has been stabilizing by correcting the overcapacity issue at a faster rate. There were 1,518,100 trucking jobs at the end of 2024. Compared to February 2020, just before the pandemic crippled the economy, that is an increase of only 0.1%.
This year begins with trucking job growth.
In January, there were nearly 4,000 additional trucking jobs. That’s 5,000 more than February 2020 and an increase of more than 7,000 jobs compared to last October thanks to a three-month growth streak.
David Spencer, vice president of market intelligence at Arrive Logistics, told Land Line that the end of 2024 was volatile. Port strikes, tariff threats and widespread winter weather events combined with peak retail season may have created more trucking jobs than typical in the fourth quarter. Spencer suggested that truckers may be able to rely on historical seasonal freight changes in 2025.
“A strong indication that sustained volatility is still not imminent, and that for the time being, the best hope for carriers this year, outside of unforeseen disruptions, is increased opportunities around typical seasonal demand surges, like summer peak and Q4 retail peak seasons,” Spencer said. “Especially with recent anecdotes pointing to shippers moving up the RFP process earlier in the year to try and lock in contract rates in case rates do begin to rise this year. The one benefit of these actions, paired with the prospect that capacity may be less oversupplied than previously thought, is that it could lead to a more rapid increase in rates, if and when the next big disruption occurs.”
Accounting for all transportation sector jobs, employment inched up slightly by 1,000 jobs in January.
The transportation sector’s net increase was driven by increases in transit/ground passenger transport (4,100 jobs), trucking (3,800 jobs), support activities for transportation (1,300 jobs) and air transport (1,100 jobs). Most of those gains were offset by significant losses in warehousing/storage (minus 4,600), couriers/messengers (minus 3,200) and pipeline transport (minus 1,700).
Last month’s report indicated that 2024 ended with transportation jobs down by 25,000 compared to the July 2022 peak. However, revised numbers reveal that the sector recovered all of those jobs and more by last May, ending the year with record-high numbers nearly 66,000 jobs above July 2022 employment.
Month to month, wages were down in January. Average weekly earnings of all employees in the transportation and warehousing sector saw a nearly $5 drop to $1,176.71. Compared to January 2024, hourly earnings increased to $31.13 from $30.37. Accounting for only production and nonsupervisory employees, average weekly earnings decreased from $1,111.70 in December to $1,104.80. Hourly earnings rose by 70 cents from January 2024 to $29.54.
Across all industries, the nation gained 143,000 jobs, falling short of many economists’ projections of 170,000 jobs, according to financial data company FactSet. Data revisions indicate that job growth last year was slower than expected, with 236,000 fewer jobs added than previously reported.
The unemployment rate dipped by 0.1 percentage point to 4.0%. Compared to the previous year, the unemployment rate for the transportation sector plummeted by 1.1 percentage points to 3.6%. That is still above the pre-pandemic December 2019 level of 2.8% but far below the 15.7% high in May and July 2020. LL
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