Originally published at: How are Freight Brokers Staying Afloat? - FreightWaves
A Unit-Economics Reality Check Looking at the shocking December 2025 metrics, we couldn’t help but wonder how brokers are surviving. While, by almost any surface-level metric, freight brokerage volumes look healthy. Loads are moving. Capacity is abundant. Rates have stabilized off the bottom. And yet, across the industry, broker layoffs continue, balance sheets remain under…
They shouldnt stay afloat. Lol they are just middle men. Nobody needs them.
1 Like
They decided to work for shippers Long ago, that’s what is wrong with brokers, no investment in assets, insurance, drivers! What a deal! So easy to steal the small guys shippers and before you know it they are brokering back to poor ( not smart) truckers. Sorry truckers not brokers!
Julie, thank you for this article. As a motor carrier, this helps me to see from the broker perspective. In some cases, brokers may simply be taking the margin for themselves, in others, they are in survival mode. Still, the great influx of cheap, illegal foreign labor allowed brokers to collapse pricing, rather than requiring shippers to either manage their own carriers or sub out to brokers at a rate that allowed carriers to survive.
RXO has never understood a GM% isn’t profits.