Mid-year isn’t always seen as the natural time to review hiring plans. Many freight forwarders wait until the end of the year or the start of Q1 to evaluate teams. But by July, the real gaps often start to show. Sales pressure builds, operations feel the strain, and experienced candidates begin quietly testing the market

Waiting until the end of the year to review your freight recruitment strategy can leave you playing catch-up. By then, strong candidates are already placed, internal teams are overstretched, and delivery performance risks slipping.

In this blog, we explore why July and August are key months for freight forwarders to reassess their hiring strategy, act on H1 insights, and get ahead of Q3 and Q4 demand. 

The Mid-Year Talent Shift in Freight Forwarding

After a turbulent start to the year, this period is more active than it may seem. Red Sea rerouting continues to affect sailing schedules and cost margins. US and EU customs changes are creating clearance delays just as volumes begin to rise. 

For many freight forwarders, these global pressures are hitting at the same time as mid-year performance reviews, strained delivery teams, and rising client demand. July and August are when team gaps start to affect service and when hiring momentum begins to shift.

Sales pressure builds as revenue targets tighten

For commercial teams working to annual goals, July is a critical point. Mid-year reviews often reveal who is falling behind. Many in sales begin looking for new roles while there is still time to recover lost earnings and finish the year on stronger ground.

Movement typically begins across:

• Inside Sales and Account Managers who lack the support to retain key clients
• Business Development Managers who are not seeing traction on their trade lanes
• Trade lane and vertical specialists in areas like pharma, aerospace, and time-critical cargo

This shift opens opportunities for freight forwarding agencies to connect with experienced commercial staff who still want to deliver results this year.

The global freight forwarding market is projected to grow from $207.1 billion in 2024 to $215.08 billion in 2025, showing steady commercial demand despite ongoing disruption (The Business Research Company).

Team structures change after internal reviews

While formal strategy reviews usually take place at year-end, many international freight companies reassess performance in Q3. Missed targets, new regional priorities, or budget resets from earlier in the year often lead to unplanned changes.

We typically see:

• Managers promoted or reassigned, leaving branch or regional coverage gaps
• Commercial and pricing desks reopened to support volume recovery
• Quiet exits following mid-year performance reviews

Hiring into these desks takes time. The forwarders that act now have more time to onboard and stabilise performance before the year-end stretch.

In Europe, the freight forwarding and customs agents industry is valued at €358.6 billion in 2025, highlighting the need for flexible team structures that can keep up with demand.

Global changes create new operational requirements

Ongoing conflict, regulatory shifts, and customs disruption are creating new operational risks across ocean, air, and cross-border movements. Teams that started the year under capacity are now being pushed to maintain service levels in a more volatile environment.

We are seeing rising demand for:

• Customs Managers and Trade Compliance Leads across the EU and North America
• Regional Operations Managers who can step into stretched teams
• Vendor and carrier coordinators supporting time-sensitive moves and rerouted trade lanes

These hires are often delayed across the largest freight forwarders, where internal processes slow down mobilisation and approval.

The European transport and logistics sector is forecast to grow by just over 2% in 2025, placing more pressure on teams to maintain delivery with fewer resources (NTT Data).

Candidate availability stays strong during summer

July and August remain active periods for candidate movement. While hiring teams may slow down, those looking to leave roles often use summer to make their next move. Many want to be in place by September, ready to manage volume or take over client accounts before the peak.

Starting your freight recruitment now ensures your freight forwarder jobs and logistics jobs are seen by the right people while the market is quieter. It gives your business more time to onboard, train, and build capacity before client service is impacted.

In the US, employment in transport and logistics jobs has grown by 47% between 2013 and 2023, with demand continuing to rise across sales and operations in 2025.

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Hiring Trends Freight Forwarders Shouldn’t Ignore

The first half of the year gave freight forwarders a better sense of where hiring processes are working, and where they may need adjusting. Some roles were filled quickly and with the right people in place. Others took longer than expected or fell through due to timing, resourcing, or competing offers. Reviewing those patterns now can help forwarders plan more effectively for the second half of the year.

Here’s what we’ve seen so far in 2025:

• Sales roles moved faster than expected in Q1, particularly across inside sales and account management teams

• Export and customs desks remained open longer in several regions, often due to slower approvals or fewer qualified applicants

• Dropouts rose where interview timelines were extended or feedback lacked clarity

• Some freight jobs were lost to e-commerce and retail logistics firms offering better onboarding or clearer paths to progression

• 67% of logistics workers said they would leave a role for better work-life balance or training support (Wonderkind, 2025)

A mid-year review is the right moment to take stock of those trends. What roles took longer than expected? Where did candidates drop out? What caused delays after offers were made? With more pressure expected across Q3 delivery and client volumes, reviewing your freight recruitment activity now gives your business more time to prepare, not just react.

Signs it’s Time to Review how You’re Hiring

Not every hire goes wrong, and not every role needs changing. But if the first half of the year felt slower than expected, or you’re seeing the same gaps reappear, it’s worth taking a closer look at how your recruitment is working.

Plans made in January might not reflect where the pressure is now. Some teams have grown faster than expected, others are covering more volume with less support. If recruitment hasn’t kept up with what the business is asking of your people, small problems can build quickly.

Here are some signs your hiring approach may need reviewing:

• Candidates are dropping out during the process or turning down offers
• The same desks are reopening after three to six months
• It’s taking longer to hire for roles that were once straightforward
• New starters are leaving before they’re properly embedded
• Hiring only starts once pressure builds, not ahead of demand
• You’re losing people to competitors you didn’t lose to last year
  

There’s also a shift in expectations around systems and tools. In a recent survey, 63% of logistics employers said they were struggling to find people with the digital skills their teams now need. If your job briefs or onboarding haven’t adapted, you could be missing candidates who would stay if things were clearer upfront.

Now is the time to fix that. If your approach to freight recruitment or logistics hiring hasn’t changed since the start of the year, take a step back and reassess what your teams actually need. Look at which desks are under strain, which roles are hardest to keep filled, and where your hiring needs to be more focused. That’s what will help your next round of freight forwarder jobs support delivery properly.

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Key Actions for Freight Hiring Managers 

If you’ve had team changes, longer hiring timelines, or more turnover than expected, now’s the time to look at what’s behind it. For many freight forwarders, the issue isn’t just that roles are hard to hire for. It’s that they’re being filled quickly but not set up properly. If the same desks keep reopening, or people are leaving earlier than planned, it’s worth reviewing the structure around those hires.

Key areas to review:

• Are any desks still being covered by interim staff or senior team stretch?
  
  
• Which freight jobs took longer than expected to fill?
  
  
• Have any new hires left within three to six months?
  
  
• Are documentation or pricing teams still covering extra workload due to delays elsewhere?
  
  
• Has recent client growth been supported with new hires or just absorbed across the team?
  
  
• Are onboarding and support working properly, or just being squeezed in?

If you found this… look at this:

• Losing staff in customs or documentation?

Look at how the roles are set up and whether the team structure supports them properly.

• Sales turnover or missed targets?

Check whether handovers, support and account allocation are realistic.

• Dropouts during interviews?

The process may be too slow, unclear or misaligned with what candidates expect.

• Short-term hires leaving?

Think about what new starters are actually walking into and whether the team can support them.

• People leaving for other industries?

Look at what those sectors are offering and whether your offer still stacks up.

If you’re working with a recruiter, this is the point where their insight matters most. They should be helping you review what’s not working, flag market changes early, and introduce people who are looking for the type of work your team actually offers. That’s how you build a pipeline that supports delivery

Final Thoughts: Why Now is the Right Time to Act

Hiring gaps rarely fix themselves. When freight forwarders wait too long to revisit their recruitment plans, the same issues show up again: service delays, missed targets, and stretched teams. The risk isn’t just short-term disruption. It’s running out of time to fix things before demand rises again.

Reviewing your hiring approach now means you still have time to make the right hires and get them fully embedded. That’s what protects service levels, stabilises teams, and keeps performance on track through the second half of the year.

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Need Support with Freight Hiring That Actually Works?

At Freight Appointments, we partner with freight forwarders to build reliable sales, operations, and customs teams. Our focus is on long-term hiring success, not shortlists for the sake of it. We work closely with you to understand what the role really needs — and who will deliver it.

Get in touch to talk about the freight talent support you actually need.

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