Key Takeaways:
- The U.S. economy is depressed but stable — not booming, but not in recession.
- The transportation market is slowly climbing out of a prolonged, record-setting freight recession.
- Rate increases in 2025 reflect carrier discipline, not market-driven demand, and will likely continue into late 2025 and early 2026.
- Significant growth in freight demand isn’t expected until broader economic drivers shift meaningfully.
The first half of 2025 was nothing if not unpredictable. Now, halfway through the year, you may be wondering if more uncertainty is in store.
If you’re a freight shipper or carrier trying to make smart, cost-effective decisions for the second half of the year, the answer to that question is critical to your planning and budgeting. You’re not alone in looking for clarity, and while many unknowns remain, there are some facts, figures, and principles we can look to for insight.
At Anderson Trucking Service (ATS), we’ve spent more than 70 years moving freight through strong markets, recessions, and everything in between. That experience gives us a long-range view of market behavior — and the ability to spot meaningful shifts when they occur.
As chief financial officer (CFO) of ATS, observing and interpreting the economic ebb and flow of the freight market is my bread and butter.
In this mid-year market update, I’ll provide an overview of both the U.S. economy and the transportation industry right now as well as my expectations for the next few months, so you can position your freight strategy for stability and success.
Mid-Year 2025 Overall Economic Outlook
When I issued my Truckload Transportation Industry Forecast at the beginning of 2025, the theme of that article was uncertainty, both on a macro and micro scale.
In the first quarter of 2025 (Q1), the U.S.’s gross domestic product (GDP) shrank 0.5 percent. Advanced estimates place GDP growth for Q2 at 3.0%.
Time will tell whether this growth has been overstated, but at a glance, this estimate suggests that some of the economic uncertainty that defined Q1 has leveled off to some extent.
The impact of that uncertainty may also have been overstated. Unemployment rates have held up better than expected. Inflation did not spiral out of control, partially because many of the anticipated tariffs were paused or re-negotiated.
Individuals and companies alike also received some degree of certainty when the tax cuts from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 were made permanent with the passing of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) in July.
To put it simply: The U.S. economy isn’t thriving, but it isn’t in a recession, either.
Our nation’s remarkable financial resiliency, evidenced not long ago during the COVID-19 pandemic, is again on display during this time of continued economic uncertainty. Things may not be great, but they are stable — which is certainly preferable to economic chaos or total collapse.
Looking to the second half of the year, I do not expect a significant change in the state of our economy.
Demand for goods is likely to remain depressed; whether it will decrease further will depend on multiple factors, including tariff actions, employment, and others.
If the labor market does soften significantly, we can expect decreased consumer activity, which would have the potential to impact the 2026 economic outlook.
Ultimately, I believe that those hoping for a dramatic improvement in the overall economy in 2025 will be disappointed. But their disappointment should be tempered by the fact that we’re experiencing relative stability — not the unpredictability or pandemonium many originally forecasted for this period.
Mid-Year 2025 Transportation Market Outlook
Let’s start with a tough truth about the modern transportation market: The post-COVID freight market has disrupted everything we thought we knew about the transportation industry’s natural rhythm.
Gone are the days of predictable, 12- to 18-month-long market cycles and the associated rise and fall of rates. The record-breaking freight recession, now over three years long, has rewritten the governing principles of transportation market behavior.
At the halfway point of the year, the outlook has improved from where it was in early 2025. While transportation companies are far from their 2021-2022 confidence levels, there are signs that the industry is on a slow but steady upswing.
In my Truckload Transportation Industry Forecast at the top of the year, I predicted that the transportation market would bounce along the bottom for a time, followed by a gradual rate increase.
In the time since, that’s exactly what we’ve seen — not just at ATS, but across the industry.
This prolonged period of low profitability, created by continued rising costs in a low-rate environment, has sent transportation companies into economic disarray. With a stable supply of trucks and nothing driving demand upward, carriers literally cannot afford to continue operation without a rate increase.
The early rate increases we’ve seen therefore reflect carrier discipline — the choice by carriers to implement a rate increase based on their companies’ financial needs, not necessarily the more predictable ebb and flow of the market.
While it won’t happen overnight, rate increases will eventually become widespread, some of the predictable seasonal cycles will return, and carriers will slowly return to a more tenable level of health.
This will be achieved in part by those gradual rate increases, but also by right-sizing fleets and portfolios. Over the last 12 to 18 months, many carriers have downsized their fleets and begun to shed the underperforming parts of their customer portfolio.
This kind of reorganization goes hand in hand with the rate discipline we’re now seeing play out across the market.
Once carriers have trimmed the fat off their fleets and portfolios, they can have a clearer, more accurate estimation of where rates need to be to keep their company in a healthy place.
In the meantime, I don’t expect much to change in terms of supply and demand in the freight market. I anticipate the industry to continue in this fashion for several more months, likely until there is a greater driver of demand and growth in the overall U.S. economy.
Navigating the Future with Confidence
Understanding the current environment is essential to making informed, cost-effective supply chain decisions in the months ahead.
So, as we head into the remaining months of 2025, this is where we stand: both the U.S. economy and the transportation market are not at peak strength, but they are relatively stable.
That’s good news; like homes, the strongest markets are built on stable foundations.
In the broader U.S. economy, we’ve managed to avoid recession, but demand remains subdued, and any hopes for a dramatic rebound this year may be overly optimistic.
Within the freight market, we’re seeing early signs of recovery, driven not by natural market cycles but by purposeful rate discipline and strategic operational adjustments by carriers.
This deliberate recalibration — trimming fleets, refining customer portfolios, and enforcing more sustainable rates — points to a much-needed return to market health.
Success in the latter half of this year will require patience and an even keel. It will also require you to plan your next few months wisely. To that end, I’d encourage you to download our 2025 Freight Shipping Calendar, which outlines which days will be the most (and least) budget-friendly days.
It’s a free resource you can use to make your transportation planning in the weeks and months to come as financially efficient as possible.
