Five Essentials Manufacturers Need to Weather the Freight Cycle Sponsored by Uber Freight For nearly 18 months, manufacturers have been braced for recession, even as they hope for a bottoming of the U.S. economy and a soft landing. They’ve gotten neither.

Manufacturing demand remains fragile as customers work down post-Covid-19 inventories. And economic uncertainty — whether from a spike in gas prices, a bad monthly jobs report, or a drone attack on Red Sea shipping — creates headline-driven volatility that can further weaken demand. Truckload capacity, meanwhile, continues to tighten, as capacity exits the market.