WASHINGTON — The rate of driver wage growth continued a downward trend in 2024 that pushed into the first quarter of this year as reduced demand for drivers could further depress pay, according to a new industry report.
According to the latest data compiled by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), after increasing by 10.8% in 2021 and 15.5% in 2022, driver wages increased by 7.6% percent in 2023 and 2.4% in 2024.
“The rate of driver wage growth is on track to decelerate further during 2025,” ATRI noted in its trucking industry cost analysis update released on Tuesday, which revealed that wages increased only 0.9% during the first two months of 2025.
The report notes that the slowing rate of overall national wage growth and an uptick in unemployment “means that there will be less upward pressure on driver wages from other industries competing for labor talent.”
Reduced demand for drivers could also be a factor in slowing wage growth this year, the report predicts. It note that the number of production and nonsupervisory employees in long-distance trucking, which can be considered a surrogate for truck drivers, declined from 685,100 in December 2023 to 672,500 in December 2024, although that number has since remained stable into the first quarter of this year.
For trucking companies, driver wages, fuel and repair and maintenance expenses, and truck and trailer payments – which rose by 8.3% to a record high $0.39 per mile – all weighed heavily on carrier profits.
“Carrier profitability suffered across all industry sectors under these pressures, as the findings show in stark detail,” according to ATRI. The report found that average operating margins were below 2% in every sector except LTL, with the truckload sector averaging -2.3% in 2024.
Last year the average operational cost of trucking decreased slightly by 0.4%, from $2.270 per mile in 2023 to $2.260 per mile, ATRI data shows. Excluding fuel, however, operational costs increased by 3.6% to $1.779 per mile, a 6.2 cents-per-mile increase over 2023, and “the highest costs ever recorded by ATRI for non-fuel operating costs,” the research group pointed out.
ATRI also noted that while driver wage costs are unlikely to increase significantly in 2025 under current market conditions, they are also unlikely to recede.
“A key uncertainty in this outlook, however, is the impact of tariffs. If truck driver demand remains steady at its present level, driver compensation costs could be exposed to any uptick in inflationary pressure resulting from tariffs.
“Given these current labor market conditions in the trucking industry, driver benefits costs are poised to increase at a greater rate than driver wages in 2025.”
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