Each year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) assesses the employment levels and wages of 830 occupations across several hundred industries by state and metropolitan area as well as at the national level. BLS normally releases this data in late March, but last fall’s government shutdown forced a delay.
Want to know the job accounting for the most employees? Home health and personal care aides at 4.3 million. The fewest? Wood patternmakers, all 220 of them.
The highest average annual wage? Pediatric surgeons at about $502,000. The lowest? Shampooers at $31,980 – just about $200 less than fast food and counter workers.
One of the 830 occupations is heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers, which is distinct from light truck drivers and driver/sales workers. BLS classifies drivers of Class 7 and 8 trucks as heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers. For simplicity, we will just call them heavy truck drivers.
There are endless variations to explore employment and wages by state and metropolitan area, but to keep it simple we will consider only employment at the national level.
A few caveats are in order. First, the figures are estimates based on a survey like most other BLS datasets. They are not as definitive as, say, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, which focuses on industry figures and not specific occupations. Also, the data collection occurs in May each year, so, it’s not a year-end figure or average of the year. However, we are labeling the data by year in charts because that’s less cumbersome.
Finally – and perhaps most important in terms of interpreting the data – the data captures only those workers in an employment arrangement. It doesn’t reflect, for example, the hundreds of thousands of drivers who are sole proprietors or independent contractors.
BLS pegged heavy truck driver employment in May 2025 at 2.06 million, down just 0.4% from the all-time high recorded in May 2024. If you are surprised that 2024 is the peak rather than 2023 or 2022, consider that forhire trucking companies are not the only employers of heavy truck drivers. In truck transportation, heavy truck employment did peak at just over 917,000 jobs in 2023. However, private fleets employ even more drivers.
While you could count anything other than truck transportation as a private fleet, FTR excludes most transportation and warehousing driver jobs from private. In addition to truck transportation, that leaves out couriers and messengers – i.e., parcel and local delivery – and warehousing and storage, which together accounted for about 200,000 heavy truck drivers in May 2025.
Except in 2020 for obvious reasons, private fleet employment of heavy truck drivers rose steadily since the Great Recession – until 2025. According to the BLS data, private fleets’ heavy truck driver employment declined 1.5% from May 2024 to May 2025, but the 961,030 drivers in 2025 still exceeded the 900,880 drivers working in truck transportation as private fleet employment has since 2021.
The slight decline in 2025 makes sense in the context of broader market conditions. For-hire carriers’ rates were still quite attractive, and private fleets that had invested in growth in the wake of pandemic capacity disruptions and soaring freight rates no doubt were beginning to face the need to replace those power units. Many likely chose not to do so and instead increased their for-hire transportation.
Another arguably surprising takeaway is that the for-hire driver count rose in May 2025 versus May 2024, according to the BLS data. It wasn’t much – just a little more than 8,000 drivers, or 0.9%. However, total for-hire payroll employment continued to fall into 2026, according BLS figures from the monthly establishment survey.
That’s not a contradiction. The BLS occupational survey shows total truck transportation employment in May 2025 at about 31,000 jobs below May 2024. Trucking companies retained drivers at the expense of other jobs. Notable declines include manual laborers for loading and unloading freight, light truck drivers, and dispatchers.
The BLS figures indicate a drop of more than 15% in for-hire carriers’ dispatcher work force from May 2024 to May 2025. That’s probably overstated; variability in the estimates surely rises as the size of the job category falls. However, it is logical that trucking companies expecting a market turn might prioritize keeping drivers over other positions that they perceive as being easier to rehire as needed. Technology also might allow fewer dispatchers when that’s obviously not the case – yet – for truck drivers.
Of course, another reason that for-hire heavy truck driver employment might have risen in 2025 is that the reduction in private fleet employment provided some incremental business just as the previous run-up in private fleet capacity likely deprived for-hire carriers of some freight.
Wholesale trade is, by far, the largest employer of heavy truck drivers among private fleets, and it is the sector that is most responsible for private fleet driver employment growth since the pandemic. Wholesale trade accounts for 28% of private fleet heavy truck drivers, according to BLS. The next largest employers are manufacturing and construction at 15.9% and 14.4%, respectively.
The BLS data reveals some surprises, such as mining’s share of just 3.3% of private fleets’ heavy truck drivers. This could be a function of the survey’s methodology as it reflects only employer firms. Many heavy truck drivers involved in mining probably are owner-operators just as they figure heavily into truckload freight hauling.
Among sectors accounting for at least 2% of private fleet drivers, only two recorded y/y gains in the May 2025 figures. The dominant wholesale trade sector grew just 0.2% while construction rose 3.5% – perhaps reflecting the early build-out of data centers.
The largest percentage drop in heavy truck driver employment was in retail trade, which was down 10.2% y/y, according to the BLS figures. Retail certainly would be a logical sector for increased outsourcing to for-hire carriers. Another notable drop was in rental and leasing, which was down 8.2%. This decrease also could be related to a shift away from private fleet transportation to for-hire.
Given how quickly the truck freight market has tightened in just a few months, shippers that chose to back away from private fleet investments might be starting to regret that decision.
Interested in learning how the FTR team can help take back control of your transportation spend? Download a sample of the FTR Shippers Update.
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