Where Did All the Truck Drivers Go?

The U.S. trucking industry continues to face a major labor challenge in 2025: too few drivers and too many empty seats. While the situation has improved slightly since the peak of the post-COVID freight boom, trucking companies and fleet operators are still grappling with one of the most persistent workforce shortages in logistics.

At the heart of the problem is an aging workforce. The average truck driver in the U.S. is about 46 years old, and a significant portion of the labor pool is nearing retirement. At the same time, younger workers aren’t entering the industry at the rate needed to replace them. One of the barriers is the interstate driving age requirement—federal law mandates that commercial drivers must be at least 21 years old to haul freight across state lines, making it harder to recruit recent high school grads. Many find other work before they’re even eligible to drive long-haul, and never look back.

Turnover is another ongoing issue. In some large fleets, turnover rates for long-haul drivers can exceed 90% annually. The reasons vary—long hours away from home, physically demanding work, and inconsistent pay all play a role. Even during high-demand periods, many trained drivers left the industry altogether, citing burnout and poor work-life balance. For owner-operators, challenges like fluctuating fuel prices and falling spot rates have made independent trucking less financially attractive in the past couple of years.

In response, some carriers are getting creative with recruitment and retention. Higher base pay, signing bonuses, and shorter regional routes are being used to appeal to a wider pool of applicants. Others are investing in apprenticeships, outreach to underrepresented groups, and even lobbying for regulatory changes to expand the driver pool. Still, the numbers suggest that the labor gap won’t close overnight—by some estimates, the industry may need over a million new drivers over the next decade just to keep up with retirements and freight demand.

For now, the driver shortage remains one of the biggest constraints on growth in the trucking industry. As freight demand slowly picks back up in 2025, the ability to attract and retain reliable drivers will be a key factor in whether companies can take advantage of that recovery—or fall behind.