Driver Pay Sinks in Second Quarter Over Freight Woes

The persistent slump in the freight market has bled over into driver salaries, according to a report.

The median starting pay for truck drivers has dropped $131 per week over the past year, and continued to drop in the second quarter of 2024, contends Fleet Intel. And the chief culprit is the freight market.

“It’s important to understand that this trend is driven by broader market conditions, such as oversupply and reduced freight rates, which are impacting the earning potential for drivers across the industry,” said Fleet Intel Vice President Steve Sichterman.

Since the third quarter of 2023, corporate drivers’ median salary dropped from $1,769 per week to $1,602 in the second quarter of 2024, the report stated. The same held true for owner-operators, who went from $4,632 median pay per week last fall to $4,500 this summer.

This was not universal for all types of drivers, however. Lease purchase truckers saw their salary rise over the same time frame, going from $2,131 media pay each week to $2,343, the report showed. Their second quarter results were still down, however, from a median peak of $2,571 weekly in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Similarly, while team drivers’ salaries remained largely flat in the first and second quarter of this year at $2,490-some, both are up from the third quarter of 2023, when the median weekly pay was $2,330.

The trend line was a little clearer when drivers were categorized by the type of vehicles they operate, with all categories consistently decreasing in pay levels between the fourth quarter of 2023 and the second quarter of 2024. This applies to drivers of vans, tankers, refrigerated vehicles and flatbeds.

The depressed freight market is “impacting the earning potential for drives across all equipment types,” the report noted.