ASSOCIATION INSIGHTS
WIT: What We Have Done to Increase the Presence of Women in Trucking
T
he Women In Trucking Association was formed in March of 2007. Now, fourteen years later, how have we advanced our mission to “encourage the
employment of women in the trucking industry, address obstacles, and promote accomplishments?”
The first question we are usually asked by the media or potential members is in regard to the percentage of women employed in the trucking industry. After all, according to W. Edwards Deming, a statistician and quality control expert, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.”
If you look at the Department of Labor (DOL) data regarding labor force statistics, they currently show the number of professional “driver/sales workers and truck drivers” as 3.64 million in the United States. Of those, 7.8% are women, which means there are 262,392 female drivers.
However, the DOL description (code 53-3031) includes those who “drive a truck over an established route or within an established territory and sells or delivers goods, such as food products, including restaurant take out items, or pick up or delivery services such as laundry.” The description also states they may take orders, collect payments, or stock deliveries.
If we use the DOL figures, then there has been an 88% increase in female drivers since 2010. This is pretty amazing, and we would like to take credit for this increase. Well, what the heck, we will take credit for this increase, because we’ve made it our mission to bring more women into the trucking industry.
However, when you think of the trucking industry, we aren’t really thinking about those straight trucks pulling into grocery stores to stock chips on the shelves, or laundry services dropping off your freshly dry-cleaned clothing. This description doesn’t seem to be about over- the-road or long-haul professional drivers.
For that reason, the board of directors at the Women In Trucking Association determined that we need to know if we are making a difference in this industry. So we decided to create our own WIT Index.
First, we paired with the National Transportation Institute (NTI), which graciously added a question to their quarterly wage surveys. They asked carriers for the percentage of female over-the-road drivers. Surprisingly, many of the carriers had not determined this number and did not know their male to female ratio.
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