Truck drivers are in it for the long haul

Truck drivers play a vital role in the U.S. economy, making sure the products we need are transported across the country to distribution centers, retailers, and our homes. For Truck Driver Appreciation Week, we’re delivering a shipment of BLS data.

In the United States as a whole, there were nearly 2.1 million heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers with an annual mean wage of $59,710 in May 2025. Workers in this occupation drive tractor-trailers or large trucks with a capacity of at least 26,001 pounds gross vehicle weight and require a commercial drivers’ license. States with the highest concentrations of heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers were often in the middle of the country, while those with the highest employment in this occupation were often located along the coasts and Great Lakes.

We measure concentrations of employment by state using location quotients, the ratio of an occupation’s share of state employment to its share of national employment. The share of employment in North Dakota in heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers was more than twice the share of United States employment in this occupation, giving North Dakota a location quotient of 2.08 and making it the state with the highest concentration of heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers. Other states with high concentrations of heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers included Arkansas (location quotient of 1.86), Nebraska (1.70), and Iowa (1.69).

Texas, with employment of 209,680, California (205,090), and Florida (112,920) were among the states with the largest number of heavy and tractor-trailer truck driver jobs.

These data are from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program and do not include self-employed workers. For more information, see the May 2025 OEWS occupation profile for heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers. We also have a profile for light truck drivers. To learn more about how location quotients are calculated, see "What is a Location Quotient?" (PDF), one of the Economics Made Easy classroom handouts.