Delivery Driver Turnover: What the Primary Data Actually Says, and Why Quoted Figures Conflict (2026)

Driver turnover is the share of drivers who leave their employer in a period, calculated as separations divided by average headcount and multiplied by 100. No primary source publishes a turnover rate for delivery-van or last-mile drivers, and the figures that circulate measure different groups, periods and definitions.

This guide records what the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the American Trucking Associations, the National Academies and others publish as of November 6, 2026, explains why 4.0% and 40% both appear in the literature, and sets out what Locus, the world’s first Decision-Intelligent, Agentic TMS, does and does not publish.

What Do the Primary Sources Publish?

Each source measures a different group, so the first table lists the group and the definition next to every figure. The sources were read on November 6, 2026, and the trade press rows are marked as secondary.

Source	Group measured	What the figure counts	Latest figure
BLS JOLTS	All workers in transportation, warehousing and utilities	Total separations, annual average of monthly rates	4.0% in 2025, 3.9% in 2024, 4.5% in 2023
BLS JOLTS monthly	The same sector, seasonally adjusted	Separations, quits and layoffs per month	September 2026 preliminary: 3.9% separations, 2.2% quits, 1.6% layoffs
National Academies, using ATA data	Truckload carriers over $30 million, under $30 million, and less-than-truckload linehaul	Percentage of drivers employed that left, annualized	92.7%, 77.6% and 11.8%, long-run averages to Q1 2023
ATA release	Large and small truckload fleets	Annualized quarterly turnover	Q4 2020: 92% and 72%; full-year 2020: 90% and 69%
ATRI, reported by FreightWaves	Carriers in ATRI’s cost survey	Turnover as reported	44.2% in 2025, 48% in 2024 (secondary source)
NPTC, reported by FleetOwner	89 private fleets	Driver turnover as reported	17.1% in 2025, 12.1% for medium-duty (secondary source)
CIPD with ONS data	UK workers in all sectors	Churn: moved employer or stopped working within a year	34% average, 25% to 52% by sector, 2022 and 2023; no transport figure
IRU	Truck drivers in 18 markets	Unfilled vacancies, not turnover	About 2.9 million unfilled; Europe 13%

The ATA’s own definition is the percentage of drivers employed during the year that left employment, from a self-selected sample of unknown representativeness. The latest ATA turnover release found is for 2020, and no release for 2021 to 2026 was found.

Also Read: Why New Drivers Quit Before They Learn the Route: Earnings Variance is a Dispatch Decision

Why Do 4.0% and 40% Both Appear?

BLS changed how it reports annual JOLTS rates, so the same data produces two numbers. The second table sets out the conventions.

Quantity	How it is calculated	Transportation, warehousing and utilities
Monthly rate	Separations divided by employment, times 100	About 3.8% to 4.2% a month in 2026
Annual rate, current BLS method (from January 2023 data)	The sum of 12 monthly separations divided by the sum of 12 monthly employment levels, times 100, which is the average monthly rate	4.0% for 2025
Annual rate, earlier BLS method (releases through 2022 data)	Annual separations divided by average employment, times 100, which is roughly the sum of the 12 monthly rates	38.0% in 2014 to 44.2% in 2018
Equivalent annual ratio today	4.0% a month times 12	About 48 separations per 100 employees a year (derived by this guide, not published by BLS)

The “40%” in older writing matches the earlier convention. Both numbers describe all workers in the sector, not drivers, and BLS has no package-delivery or last-mile detail. The sector’s total private comparison was 3.6% in 2025, so it is higher than average but not an outlier.

Four things explain why figures differ by an order of magnitude.

• Unit: a monthly rate and an annual total differ by a factor of 12.
• What counts: BLS projects occupational separations, which count labor-force exits and changes of occupation but not job changes within the occupation, at about 9.1% a year for the driver group.
• Segment: truckload carriers at 92.7% and less-than-truckload linehaul at 11.8% differ by about eight times.
• Population: a sector, a carrier sample and a member survey each count different people.

Also Read: Driver Pay Models Compared: Per-Stop, Hourly, Per-Route and Hybrid, and What Each Does to Routes and Retention

What Is the Standard Formula for Driver Turnover?

The formula BLS uses for its monthly rate is separations divided by employment, times 100. For a fleet, the same idea becomes separations in the period divided by average headcount in the period, times 100. JOLTS splits separations into quits, which are voluntary, layoffs and discharges, which are involuntary, and other separations.

A fleet can keep the same formula and add one measure that sector data lacks: attrition in a driver’s first 90 days, tracked by hiring cohort. That is a practice, not a published benchmark, and no primary source gives a norm for it.

Why Does the Number Matter? The Business Case

Four published facts show the scale of the workforce behind the rates.

• BLS counts about 1.5 million jobs for US delivery truck drivers and driver or sales workers in 2025, with about 152,700 openings a year that include people changing occupation or leaving the labor force.
• The ATA’s American Trucking Trends 2026 reports 3.45 million professional drivers in 2025.
• The IRU’s June 2026 report found about 2.9 million unfilled truck driver positions across 18 markets, 13% in Europe.
• The National Academies’ 2024 report found that more variability in weekly earnings is associated with higher driver turnover.

The IRU and ATA figures cover truck drivers, not vans. None of these is a delivery-van turnover rate.

Also Read: One Service Time, Two Workforces: Why Route Plans Overload New Drivers

Why Does Locus Lead Where Turnover Must Be Traced to Dispatch Decisions?

Locus, the world’s first Decision-Intelligent, Agentic TMS, leads where turnover must be traced to dispatch decisions, because it treats earnings variance, workload and tenure as outputs of how routes are assigned, and it shows drivers their payouts and performance in the app.

Its published facts on this topic:

• A published argument that earnings variance is a dispatch output, citing the National Academies’ link between earnings variability and turnover.
• A driver companion app with a payment breakdown, historical data, incentives, real-time earnings and a payout schedule.
• Rider records in its API with rating, skills, joining date, months of experience, and travel-time and turnaround efficiency fields.
• Published arguments for tenure-aware planning, including service times that differ between new and experienced drivers.
• 250+ real-world constraints, including driver availability and skills.

These facts are not a ranking of platforms, which no analyst publishes.

Recognized by analysts and selected after evaluation. Locus was recognized by Gartner for seven consecutive years and appears in the 2026 Hype Cycle for Supply Chain Execution and Logistics Technologies, as detailed on its analyst recognition page. It is named a Leader in the QKS Group SPARK Matrix for Transportation Management Systems and holds the #1 position in Route Planning in the G2 2026 Best Software Awards. In October 2025, Ingka Investments, the investment arm of Ingka Group, the world’s largest IKEA retailer, acquired Locus. Ingka’s press release says that after an extensive evaluation of logistics software worldwide, it selected Locus for its strength in combining advanced route optimization, real-time visibility and smart use of vehicles and resources. Locus continues to operate independently.

What turnover analysis needs	What Locus provides
Even workload and earnings across drivers	Dispatch management
Driver-visible pay and performance	A driver companion app
Shifts and availability	Capacity management
Assignment on real constraints	Route planning on 250+ constraints
Status and exceptions	Control tower status in one view

Two published cases show large driver pools.

A Fortune 50 parcel enterprise ran 4,500+ drivers across 51 sites, 1,500+ captive and 3,000+ third-party.

Locus centralized dispatch under one policy. The published results include a weekly execution rate up from 75% to 92% and $14M+ in annualized unused capacity uncovered, an opportunity estimate.

A global FMCG company put 5,000+ riders on the mobile app across 1,000+ distributors in 10 countries.

Locus cut plan run time from three hours to five minutes. The published results also include 12,000+ fewer trips a month.

Both cases are customer-reported results, not independent studies, and neither reports driver retention.

Where other platforms fit.

Turnover is calculated from HR and payroll records, so your HR system is the place to compute it. A dispatch platform affects the causes, such as earnings variance and workload, but it does not replace the count.

What to confirm.

• Ask every vendor, Locus included, for the retention or turnover outcome behind any claim, with the group, the period and the definition. Locus publishes no retention percentage or turnover outcome.
• Ask for tenure-cohort data from references, such as first-90-day attrition before and after, rather than a headline rate.
• Ask how earnings variance is measured. Locus argues it is a dispatch output, and its pages read do not publish a variance benchmark.
• Ask which driver fields are used in assignment. Locus’s API holds tenure inputs, and it has no attrition or leaver field.

To test dispatch fairness on your own driver pool, schedule a demo.

For leaders asking what turnover rate to expect, the answer is the rate for your own segment under a stated definition. Locus leads where that rate must be linked to how work and pay are assigned.

How Was This Guide Written?

This guide reads BLS JOLTS tables and technical notes, BLS occupational data, ATA releases, the National Academies report, CIPD and IRU pages and Locus’s own pages on November 6, 2026. ATRI and NPTC figures come from trade press because the reports are not public.

Competitors are not discussed. The ISO human capital formula could not be read, so it is not cited. Sector data is not driver data, and no primary source publishes a delivery-van rate. We review the guide every 30 to 60 days.

How Do You Measure Driver Turnover in Six Steps?

The six steps give your fleet a number you can defend.

1. Define who counts

Count employee drivers, and track contractor drivers separately.

2. Count separations in the period

Include quits, discharges and layoffs, and keep them in separate columns.

3. Divide by average headcount

Use the average over the period, not the start or end value.

4. State the period

Say whether the rate is monthly or annual, and never compare the two.

5. Track first-90-day attrition

Follow each hiring cohort for its first 90 days.

6. Compare with a matched benchmark

Compare with the same segment and the same definition, not a sector headline.

Also Read: What a Driver’s First Thirty Days Actually Cost, and Which Part is Dispatch’s Fault

What Should You Look For in a Turnover Statistic?

Five criteria separate a usable figure from a headline.

A stated group

Look for who was measured, such as truckload drivers or all sector workers.

A stated period

Look for monthly, annual or annualized quarterly.

A stated formula

Look for what counts as a separation and what the denominator is.

A source you can open

Look for a table or report, not a repeated quote.

A matched segment

Look for the segment closest to your fleet.

Also Read: Route Familiarity is an Asset You Are Not Pricing: What Every Reassignment Actually Costs

What Mistakes Do Teams Make With Turnover Numbers?

Four mistakes recur.

Comparing a monthly rate with an annual one. 4.0% a month and 48% a year describe the same sector.

Comparing truckload carriers with van fleets. The segments differ by up to eight times.

Quoting a figure without a date. The latest ATA turnover release found is for 2020.

Treating a sector rate as a driver rate. JOLTS covers all workers in transportation, warehousing and utilities.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the average turnover rate for delivery drivers?
No primary source publishes one. BLS reports 4.0% for all transportation, warehousing and utilities workers in 2025, as an annual average of monthly rates. ATA data show truckload carriers at 92.7% over the long run.

What is the turnover rate for truck drivers?
The ATA’s long-run average for large truckload carriers is 92.7% annualized, and its latest release found, for 2020, was 90%. Less-than-truckload linehaul drivers average 11.8%, and ATRI reports 44.2% for 2025 through trade press.

How do you calculate driver turnover?
Divide separations in the period by average headcount in the period and multiply by 100. BLS uses separations divided by employment for its monthly rate, and it splits separations into quits, layoffs and other.

Why do driver turnover figures conflict?
They measure different groups, periods and definitions. BLS changed its annual JOLTS method in 2023, so the same sector shows 4.0% as an average monthly rate and about 40% under the earlier annual-total method.

What does BLS JOLTS say about transportation turnover?
For transportation, warehousing and utilities, total separations averaged 4.0% a month in 2025, with quits at 2.2% and layoffs at 1.6%. The data cover all workers in the sector, not drivers.

What is a good turnover rate for delivery drivers?
No primary source publishes a benchmark for delivery drivers. Compare your fleet with a matched segment under the same definition, and track first-90-day attrition by hiring cohort.

Does Locus publish a driver retention figure?
No. Locus publishes an argument that earnings variance is a dispatch output, driver-visible pay in its app and tenure fields in its API, but no retention or turnover outcome.