The Women In Trucking Association (WIT) recently released findings of its 2024-25 WIT Index. This unique research is the industry’s barometer to benchmark and measure the percentage of women who make up critical roles in transportation. These roles include corporate management (C-Suite), those who serve on boards of directors, management and supervisory roles, and functional roles such as operations, technicians, HR/talent management, safety, and professional drivers.
From August 2023 through April 2024, WIT conducted a survey of organizations of all sizes in transportation to gather percentages of women in their workforce. The respondents were asked to report data that included demographics, status of the company’s diversity and inclusion policy, and percentages of females in various roles within the company.
Approximately 350 respondents reported their organizations’ gender diversity statistics in the WIT Index (2024-25) survey. A majority of them (51.5%) represent for-hire motor carriers or companies with private fleets as part of the organization’s operations. Of those respondents representing organizations with fleet assets, 38% are for-hire motor carriers of various types (full truckload, less-than-truckload, refrigerated, flatbed, expedited and liquid) and 13.5% are manufacturers, retailers, distributors, and other company types with private fleets. Another 13.5% of respondents are intermediary companies, including third-party logistics companies, truck brokers, and intermodal marketing companies (IMCs).
The 2024-25 WIT Index survey found a substantial number of women in influential leadership roles. Approximately 28% in C-Suite/executive positions are women, 34.5% in supervisory leadership roles are women, and 29.5% of those who serve on boards of directors are women.
A significant percentage of women also hold roles in these functions: 74.5% in human resources/talent management, 38.5% in dispatcher roles, and 38.5% in safety. However, only 4% of truck diesel technicians are women.
It has been a common assumption for years that the size of companies with for-hire or private fleets have a correlation to the percentage of professional truck drivers who are women. For the first time, the 2024-25 WIT Index reported percentage of professional truck drivers who are women based upon company workforce size. According to this year’s WIT Index, micro/small companies with less than 500 employees report that 12.5% of their overall professional driver population who hold CDLs are women. Large/medium enterprises with 500 to 4,999 employees report that approximately 10.5% of their overall professional driver workforce who hold CDLs are women. Giant/major enterprises with more than 5,000 employees report that approximately 7% of their truck driver population who hold CDLs are women. It’s important to note that these percentages reflect professional truck drivers who hold CDLs and are driving medium- to heavy-duty commercial trucks, not last-mile or delivery vans or other vehicles that are not heavy-duty trucks.
FTR’s Shippers Conditions Index improved in September to 4.6 from the 2.9 reading in August due to lower fuel costs, looser capacity and lower freight rates.
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