TRUCKERS ARE QUITTING: The Recession is HERE (and it's worse than you think)

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:01]I know a lot of people out here talking about this trucking recession that's going on with a lot of truck drivers right now.

[00:00:08]>> I don't know if you don't know, I'm a truck driver, right? Owner operator. And uh unfortunately for a while now, how can I say it? A trucking recession.

[00:00:16]Truck drivers are falling like dominoes, giving up on the business.

[00:00:21]Today was an unusual day. A few of my friends, you know, they post their trucks on marketplace. They just want to get rid of they just want to move on.

[00:00:28]you know, they're not not too many people are looking at, you know, in general, nobody wants to buy. So, like I said, today was a little unusual. A few of the guys called me up and said, "Why don't you take take the trucks, give us a few dollars, and pay us the rest in payments?"

[00:00:43]And I was telling him like, "What you're going through, I'm going through the same way. So, if I was to take the trucks, I'm going to park them and they're going to just they're going to be like uh table ornaments. They're going to gather uh rust. You can't afford to hire no drivers cuz it's not worth it. That's number one. There is no work.

[00:01:01]When is this going to end? I have no idea. This this trucking recession, I guess you're going to call it. I don't know. And the few guys that are are doing okay, the only reason they're doing okay is they're doing Amazon Relay. If you don't know what Amazon Relay is, it's like an app where you, you know, pick certain moves that you want to do. And the only good moves on that app are called Cross Towns, Inner Motoral Work. That's the only thing that's moving these guys around right now. Other than that, it's just pathetic.

[00:01:27]When is it going to end? I don't know.

[00:01:30]And I'm going to be honest with you. I didn't got most of rid of almost all of them. I only got a few left. And they're I'm on one and another guy's on one.

[00:01:37]We're not even doing any good today. For example, came out did a box.

[00:01:42]I can definitely tell you, I see exactly what they talking about. Freight is not picking up like you thought it was. It's slow.

[00:01:52]Along with it being slow, you're also seeing the restructuring even in the big companies of hours. Like the overtime, take it from me, I'm going through it.

[00:02:04]Uh overtime is not what it used to be.

[00:02:07]They're watching hours more. Uh they pushing your hours up to come in sometimes. Uh they might want you to come in at a certain time. Say for instance, they you come in at 7:00. I used to come in at 7:00. I come in at 8 now. But for some weird reason, some days I'm working longer hours, some days I'm working shorter. It just depends.

[00:02:26]Well, what tends to happen is the freight in certain areas. This is what you're starting to see. You're starting to see a lot of companies starting to fold. So, when you seeing companies fold, who's going to cover that? Nobody.

[00:02:39]Because there's nobody to be put in that area because there's no freight. So, that means they're going to be covering the areas that's a high commodity area that's putting out a lot of freight. But the problem is the driver that's already in that area is already maybe more more so picking up majority of that freight, which means the person that's back that that's going to back that driver up uh is only probably going to maybe do one or two pickups in that area and then next thing you know, they might have them come back and do some drops. See, when they talk about a recession, you got to also think of the output that companies have to spend. They got to spend on products getting to their uh company along with spending tremendously way more than what they were spending before because the tariffs. Uh we at war now so now you got to pay for fuel in order to get that product. That's why a lot of companies trying to hold back off of loading up off of a lot of the stuff that they need because it's like, yo, they can't afford to spend all this money in order to get the stuff that they're getting depending on what they're getting. Um, I went to a one facility, they deal with medical. Well, the problem is the two places that they uh ship their medical, well, not ship that they uh get their medical supplies from are overseas. Well, you already know if you're not if you outside and you paying attention to what's going on out here, you understand anything that's coming from across the withers, you are going to pay.

[00:04:09]You're going to because when you dealing with fuel, you dealing with fuel, you're dealing with airplanes, you also got to deal with the trucks.

[00:04:17]you're going to pay so much money to the point where as though your profits are looking horrible, which means the people that you have uh employed with you, they going to suffer.

[00:04:30]I went to a company not long ago, what was it maybe like two months ago? I pulled up along with pulling up. UPS was right next to me. We both were going to the same place. And not only I've been to this place a couple times, not a lot, but a couple. Um, and I know where the place was at, so I wasn't confused. But when I pulled up, it looked a little different. It looked a little different because for some odd reason, it was no cars outside, but you know, when you a truck driver, you go into the back of the building. So, I'm thinking, you know, it might be somebody in the building. Sometimes it's like that. You can go to buildings, they look vacant, but they're not vacant. They got people inside for some reason. I don't know where their car is at, if they got dropped off. I don't know. I ain't got nothing to do with that. I'm just there to just to deliver. Well, I was surprised. I knocked on the door.

[00:05:18]Then I noticed the bay dock, the dock door was open up and I seen somebody cleaning and they were scrubbing the floors with them like scrubbers on the seaman floor. Y'all know how it is up in these warehouses. And I'm looking and I'm like, "Wait a minute. Why the place look empty?" So, as I'm looking, I look up under the door. I screamed at the not screamed at him. I hollered for the guy.

[00:05:39]He turned around. He didn't know English. So he waved somebody to come down. Then they came down. I said, "Yo, what's going on, man?" I said, "Look, I'm here to deliver to such and such place." They said, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's uh no business here." I said, "No, no, no, no, no." I said, "I'm here to deliver." And I told him the name of the place. And so he was he was like, "Oh, no. We we're" He knew a little English and he was like, "No, we're we're just cleaning." So I'm looking I said, "Wait a minute. So it's no company here?" He said, "No."

[00:06:09]I'm like, I'll be damned.

[00:06:11]So, I had to make the phone call and be like, yo. And they was like, dog, I they my job didn't even know that they closed. They must have did it throughout the weekend. And I'm starting to see this more and more. So, when you're seeing truck drivers going through it, like I'm seeing companies literally falling back off of overtime. Not only that, you're seeing people applying for jobs and they like, "Yo, they not getting call backs, but they say they need drivers." But for some odd reason, when they say they need drivers, you like, do they need drivers or they just got people applying for these jobs just to look like that they're looking for drivers, but they're not hiring? Because you got a lot of truck drivers out here looking for jobs. But this is the problem. When you're letting go a lot of people right now, just like UPS let go a lot of a people, a lot of a people. a lot of people. You wonder, okay, if they let go all those people, then where they going to find jobs at?

[00:07:05]But if the economy is slow as it is right now and everybody is scrambling around trying to figure out their next move, where are the jobs for the people that they let go at Amazon, UPS, and any other truck driver company?

[00:07:24]Where they going? makes you wonder where are they going where they're coming to the places that deems to be a reputable company which is a company that I work for uh places like Sia FedEx but the problem is we're all in the same boat we might not the companies might not have did layoffs but it slowed down due to work so if it slowed down doing the work that means the hiring that they say they looking for they really ain't looking for they just got them on the back burner for the drivers that want to be our rate talking about they're not going to do certain loads. You ain't got to. You ain't got to go home. That's what they going to say. Go home. I seen it. Look, I'm not saying names. They I done seen it happen. They like, "Come on back. Go home." All right. We'll call you We'll call you tomorrow. That's going to They're going to call you tomorrow. And they gonna call you tomorrow. They're going to tell you, "Hey, um, we'll let you know uh in the next day or in two days." So now you home for two days. Like, wait a minute. What the hell? That's because you got cocky and they said they let you know um due to your refusal to be able to work and and you know what I mean? And you started denying what you was going to do. Uh, that's not the way that work here. And when you signed that application, you already knew what you was doing. No, nobody own these trucks. I'm telling you something that I unheard and I realized these are companies. This is how companies is looking at you now. You got these oldtimers that go to the that been with a company for damn near 10, I'm going to say 10. I'm going to say more than that cuz these old-timers been with these companies companies for about 10 I said 10 again. 20 30 years, whatever.

[00:09:13]God damn it. You know what I meant? and they're you're looking at them and you're saying to yourself, why is it that these people think that they can call their shots? You know why? Because they built off of the old way. We're not in the old way. We're in a new way. The new way is these rules are changing. The economy is not like it was before.

[00:09:33]People talk about 2008. It used to be like this. No, it was not like this. It was bad, but not like this. We dealt with the housing market. We dealt with layoffs, but not like this.

[00:09:47]You're not only dealing with layoffs right now. You're dealing with manufacturers that can't put out because of inflation like like like everything is so overly high. So that means in order to make the products that you need to make, you need to order things. And along with ordering these things, things are on back order. Things are overly priced. Things are basically probably stagnated depending on what kind of products you need. You know, hell, look at Cuba. I don't know all the stuff that they put out, but you look at them. They need oil.

[00:10:21]You look at all these companies that need oil, diesel, and whatnot. You got California skyrocketed when it comes to uh diesel. Who you think that's going to affect? is going to affect the people that need to go to the malls and the markets and get their food because truck drivers are the backbone of the world.

[00:10:38]They are they are the backbone. People might not like that and like to look at that, but we are. In order to get your product to where it need to be, you're not driving a dare in no car. You need truck drivers. So, when you see truck drivers going out of business due to the the overly price gouging when it comes to brokers and whatnot, you're going to see a lot of this. You're going to see a lot of truck drivers turning their backs on the trucking industry because when you got companies that's doing all type of things that make people uncomfortable, not giving people over 40 hours, not doing all the things that they were doing before that gave people a nice livable wage. See, it's not about the livable wage no more. It's about the hours because if your livable wage is a nice uh hourly pay, it's liveable. But this is where it becomes uncomfortable.

[00:11:30]If you're working 30 something hours and you under the 40, I'm g say really under the 40 hour mark.

[00:11:38]That's where you going to have a problem. It's going to be a problem.

[00:11:44]Y'all be safe out here and stay up. Like and subscribe and hype me up. Hype me up. All right, y'all. I'll be safe.