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Oil was trading below $74 a barrel early Monday, near its lowest level in two weeks, on concerns that a slowing economy could hurt demand, Bloomberg reported.

NEW YORK — Fleet executives warned that the continuing, though modest, rise in freight volumes won’t trigger an immediate surge in equipment orders.

Fleets are intensifying their already aggressive recruiting efforts to find qualified applicants, as skilled prospects become harder to find, industry officials said.

When Joe Killeen heard that New York City needed participants for its trial off-hours delivery program, he did more than volunteer his Kearny, N.J., trucking firm, New Deal Logistics.

FedEx Corp. last week said it doubled its quarterly profits, largely because of strong international business, and announced a major overhaul of its money-losing domestic less-than-truckload operations.

The trucking industry seems to operate primarily in a boom or bust cycle. Rarely, it seems, are things stable for very long.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration last week said it will not require the next generation of electronic onboard recorders to use a different type of computer connection than current models, or to operate in temperature extremes beyond the capability of existing systems.

NEW YORK — Con-way Freight expects to achieve progress on restoring profit margins through cost reduction and efficiency efforts in the upcoming quarters, the chief financial officer of its parent company said.

U.S. Class 8 truck sales climbed 23.5% in August from year-ago levels, pushing sales for the first eight months of 2010 to 16.5% higher than last year’s results for the comparable period, WardsAuto.com reported.

The average cost of a gallon of diesel fuel in the United States rose 1.2 cents last week to $2.943 a gallon, the first increase in five weeks, the Department of Energy reported.