Truck driver jobs saw a rebound in July after two months of losses. However, trucking employment has varied throughout the year due to unstable trade policy. Some experts predict more job losses ahead.
The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed nearly 4,000 truck driver jobs were added last month. That is despite a massive slowdown in hiring across the broader economy.
The uncertainty around tariffs and trade policy may be responsible for the job volatility. This year, truck driver jobs increased by as much as 8,000 in one month, only to decline in the following months, then rise again.
Although an inconsistent trade policy has caused issues for some operations, others have found opportunities that create truck driver jobs, albeit temporarily. David Spencer, vice president of market intelligence at Arrive Logistics, pointed out that “volatile shipper demand and pull-forward activity have created new opportunities for growth and profit.”
Employment data supports that claim. March saw the biggest surge in truck driving jobs in nearly three years. That was likely the result of businesses frontloading imports ahead of tariffs set to go into effect in April.
The trade policy shifted again, pausing tariffs until August. Truck driver jobs dropped in May and June after businesses had frontloaded all they could handle. That brings us to the latest data, when truck driver jobs received another boost just ahead of tariffs anticipated to go into effect.
If this trend continues, truck driver jobs may face further losses.
(H3) With import frontloading likely leveling off and tariffs raising consumer prices, freight demand could drop.
This assumes the current trade policy does not change unexpectedly.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that lower rates will likely continue the three-year truck driver purge. Why is that good? After a massive surge of new carriers and drivers in the wake of the pandemic, a truck driver glut has put downward pressure on rates. Low rates have forced many drivers out.
“Carriers are not immune to rising costs either, and as equipment prices, labor and maintenance costs all rise, a low-rate environment may mean even more challenges ahead for carriers,” Spencer said. “While I believe this situation sets up well for long-term rate growth conditions as capacity levels are likely to fade, it may need to get worse before it gets better.”
Data from ACT Research reflects some of those challenges.
Class 8 truck sales have plummeted this year, with trade policy at least partly behind the slump.
The transportation data analytics company noted that small carriers face rough conditions heading into 2026, as “tariff-linked inflation” is raising equipment and operating costs and weakening over-the-road and regional freight demand.
“As of June, tariffs are estimated to have added 2-4% to highway tractor prices, with further increases likely based on recent trade policy shifts,” ACT Research stated in a recent blog post. “This is pushing average Class 8 pricing higher heading into 2026, complicating pre-buy economics and making large-scale fleet renewals more difficult to justify in the current environment.”
Accounting for all transportation-sector jobs, employment was up slightly by 4,000 jobs. A significant increase in courier and messenger jobs made up for an equally substantial drop in warehousing and storage jobs.
Across all industries, only 73,000 jobs were added to the economy. That falls way short of the anticipated 115,000 jobs, according to financial data company FactSet. It is also less than half of the trailing 12-month average of 150,800 jobs.
The unemployment rate ticked up from 4.1% to 4.2%. For the transportation sector, the unemployment rate dropped by 1.4 percentage points to 4.3% compared to last July. This is still above the pre-pandemic level of 2.8% in December 2019 and July 2019’s level of 4.1%. However, it is far below the high of 15.7% in May and July 2020. The unemployment rate for transportation and material-moving jobs dropped 0.5 percentage points to 6.3%. LL