Everyone is debating the probable trucking capacity effects of severe restrictions on non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses and strict enforcement of English language proficiency, and rightly so. As FTR addressed recently in its analysis for clients, the rising pressure on foreign drivers, as well as soaring insurance premiums, are the most likely catalysts for a capacity-driven recovery in trucking.

And based on data released in September, it looks like a tight driver supply might be closer than we thought.

What Payroll Employment Numbers Say About the Truck Driver Workforce

One of the key indicators of driver capacity is payroll employment in trucking. These figures include all employees, not just drivers. However, the driver force represents the bulk of employment and mostly accounts for notable changes in employment levels.

The latest official Bureau of Labor Statistics figures available show seasonally adjusted payroll employment in trucking at just 0.4% below pre-pandemic (February 2020) levels. General freight truckload jobs are even closer to that level. Less-than-truckload employment is well below (4.6%) the pre-pandemic level, not surprisingly, due to Yellow’s failure in 2023. 

Current BLS figures show something quite fascinating regarding payroll employment in long-distance specialized trucking. 

While truckload employment peaked in October 2022 at 6.4% higher than February 2020, long-distance specialized trucking jobs never exceeded pre-pandemic levels – until July 2025. Due to the government shutdown, that’s the latest data available. According to current BLS figures, specialized employment has risen sharply this year, especially in the month of July.

Note the qualifiers “official” and “current.” That’s because these numbers will change.

BLS Monthly Estimates vs. Annual and Preliminary QCEW Reports

Each February, BLS publishes a benchmark revision of its monthly payroll job estimates based on the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), which is more comprehensive than monthly sampling by the statistical agency. 

During the summer before that revision, BLS releases a preliminary benchmark revision of the data based on the QCEW for the first quarter of that year. However, BLS does not adjust its monthly estimates until it finalizes the revision.

For the entire U.S. economy, that preliminary revision released in September indicated that the U.S. as of March had 911,000, or 0.6%, fewer jobs than current estimates. That is quite a bit larger than the downward revision of 610,000 jobs in this year’s final benchmark revision, but it’s not all that far off from last year’s preliminary downward revision of 818,000 jobs. 

For trucking, September’s preliminary QCEW revision was notably larger than that for the U.S. in percentage terms. 

According to the preliminary figures, trucking’s payroll employment in March was 35,100 jobs, or 2.3%, below the currently published BLS estimate, seasonally adjusted. The latest preliminary revision is just a bit larger than the 32,500-job (2.1%) reduction indicated in last year’s preliminary revision. The final revision as of December 2024 was 27,800 jobs below the prior BLS estimate for the month.

General freight truckload’s preliminary revision resembled the overall revision in percentage terms at a decrease of 11,400 jobs, or 2.2%, as of March. The other two general freight sectors – LTL and local – saw only minuscule preliminary revisions.

The preliminary revision for local specialized trucking is comparable to that for truckload in percentage terms at a reduction of 4,500 jobs, or 2%, as of March of this year.

The biggest preliminary change, though, was for long-distance specialized trucking. 

Current BLS estimates show payroll employment for that sector mostly surging since the beginning of 2024. But the preliminary revision implies a very different situation, suggesting that employment fell sharply between the middle of 2024 and March of this year. 

The QCEW data puts March payroll employment for long-distance specialized 7,100 jobs, or 5.3%, below the current BLS estimate.

Then Why Doesn’t Capacity Feel Tighter?

How could these figures be so low and capacity still be loose? 

BLS payroll employment data does not capture the vast majority of very small for-hire carriers because few of them use payroll employees. Based on FTR’s analysis of Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration registration data, for-hire carriers with 1 to 5 trucks still have about 38% more drivers than they did before the pandemic.

Small carriers have weathered much adversity over the past three years. Enforcement against foreign drivers and cost increases from insurance premiums represent near-term threats to this group, but they also could bring a rebound in spot rates that ultimately could bolster very small carriers. 

The balance between demand and capacity is not necessarily as simple as it seems.