PLOVER, Wisc. — The Women in Trucking Association (WIT) announced today that it has partnered with The National Transportation Institute (NTI) to gather more accurate data and to distribute its WIT Index.

The WIT index measures the number of women drivers and management at organizations nationwide. In the past, the association relied on the US Department of Labor (DOL)  data for information however, it found that the numbers it gathered from the DOL were not accurate.

“We know that women represent a largely underdeveloped minority group in our industry,” said NTI’s COO, Leah Shaver.  “We also know, from recent conference discussions and media coverage, that benchmarking gender distribution in our industry is necessary to quantify progress.  We’re going to help trucking companies do just that.”

NTI is a top research organization for driver compensation and benefit information as it surveys hundreds of trucking firms for data regarding driver wages, benefits, retirement plans and more on a quarterly basis.  The confidential information is aggregated and then provided to carriers for benchmarking and forecasting.

This past year, NTI added two questions to their list of research responses.  They asked for the percentage of women employed as truck drivers, as well as the percentage of women in leadership roles within the company.  Over the course of three quarters, NTI found the average percentage of female drivers at these carriers to be 7%. They also found that women comprise 24% of management at the carriers surveyed.  This contrasts with the 18.1%t reported by the DOL, says WIT.

For more information, please visit:  www.womenintrucking.org.