American Trucking Trends 2016 is Released

The latest edition of American Trucking Trends is out! Released early August 2016 by the American Trucking Associations, the annual trucking profile shows industry trends you may want to read about. Let’s take a look!

If you don’t know much about American Trucking Trends, it’s the only almanac on U.S. trucking and serves as a vital source of material on transportation issues. This information is crucial because trucking companies, suppliers, logistics providers, investors, and many others use this data to make important decisions about the future… Decisions that affect an industry that moved over 10 billion tons of freight last year—that’s huge for our economy!

According to the newly released edition of Trends, the trucking industry posted gains in employment, number of truck drivers, and truck sales through 2015. Here’s a breakdown of the findings:

Trucking collected $726.4 billion in gross freight revenues, 81.5% of the nation’s freight bill in 2015.
Trucks carried 10.49 tons of freight in 2015, accounting for 70.1% of domestic freight tonnage.
In 2015, there were 3.63 million Class 8 trucks in operation.

Trends also includes data on:

Amount of taxes the industry paid.
The number of miles combination trucks traveled and the amount of fuel they consumed.
Key employment data, including the number of persons working in trucking related jobs throughout all industries, number of drivers and how many women are truck drivers.
Number of trucking companies by company size.

You can purchase the complete 2016 ATA American Trucking Trends report here.

Overall, 2015 was a pretty good year for the industry. So how are things shaping up for 2016 so far? ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello says, “While the first half of 2016 has been challenging for the industry, trucking is coming off two very strong years and we are optimistic about the future.” It looks like we’ll all have to wait and see for the release of next year’s Trends edition!

We will leave you with this: the industry continues to face a major shortage of drivers. As Baby Boomers retire and the competition to hire qualified candidates increases, the demand is tough. Trucking companies and driver recruiters are looking to attract Millennial talent and ways to engage with their target audience on multiple advertising channels—as they should.

This year and looking forward, a powerful recruitment advertising strategy is necessary to stay ahead of trends and generate driver leads. If you’re interested in a free consultation with The Hightower Agency, get in touch with us today! With over 25 years in the industry, we offer a wide variety of effective and affordable driver recruitment advertising solutions.

Questions? Comments? Leave them below!