“In February 2026, trucking tender rejection rates surged past 14%, the highest since 2022 pandemic peaks, signaling a shift where carriers are favoring higher-paying spot market loads over contract loads. This market tightening is primarily due to reduced truck supply from carrier attrition and severe weather, resulting in spot rates roughly 9% higher year-over-year and expectations for contract rates to rise in 2026.”
So basically, freight prices are on the rise, and salaries always follow! They predict that removing many of the non-domiciled CDLs will have an impact, as will an increase in manufacturing.
I’m not convinced. The gubbament spending is out of control and the value of the dollar is still being destroyed. We still haven’t hit the bottom yet because they keep moving the goal posts and changing how things are calculated depending on who is in office and what results they want people to see and respond to. I’m still way too skeptical to believe it at this point.
Well, there are never any guarantees when it comes to the government, other than they’ll make a mess of things. They rarely clean up their messes.
I know there have been people hoping to flood the trucking industry with immigrants for decades, the way they did other blue-collar trades, and now I’m afraid they’ve done it. Will they undo it again? God only knows.
That definitely includes company drivers. If they can revert the massive influx of immigrants in recent years then driver demand will regain strength and salaries along with it.
The strength of the economy matters, as well. So you’ll see fluctuations in wages sometimes as the economy fluctuates, but not massively.
I think bringing in hundreds of thousands of new CDL holders will have a much more dramatic negative impact on driver salaries than a temporary dip in the economy.