Trucking’s Push to Recruit Veterans and Women Sees Mixed Results

A survey by Driver iQ has found that trucking push to recruit more military veterans and women into its ranks has so far brought only mixed results.

Driver IQ’s most recent Recruitment & Retention Survey found that compared to five years ago, the number of veterans and women hired at some fleets had risen, yet a significant percentage of fleets reported not targeting these groups at all.

“Over the last five years, recruiters and consultants have long recognized that the industry needs to find a larger pool for recruiting drivers. Among the groups that have been identified have been returning veterans and women," said Lana Batts, co-president of Driver iQ. “Our most recent survey attempted to measure how successful the industry has been and what programs have worked the best. Unfortunately, the results have been somewhat mixed.”

For veterans, only 20% of the fleets that had a program reported successfully adding employees from that pool while 20% of the fleets were unsure if their programs worked at all. Twenty-five percent of the fleets indicated that there had been no change in the number of veterans and 38% indicated lacking programs to recruit veterans altogether.

As a group, women fared better in the survey, with 45% of respondents indicating that the number of female drivers had increased over five years. Still, 38% of the fleets surveyed reported having no programs aimed specifically at recruiting female drivers. The most common method that fleets used to recruit female drivers was to offer female trainers, according to Driver iQ.

“We were surprised by the large number of respondents who were unsure about if their recruiting programs aimed at veterans and women were successful or not. This may indicate that carriers are implementing so many new recruiting programs at the same time that cannot quantify the effectiveness of just one program,” said Batts.

The Q2 Trends in Truckload Recruitment and Retention Survey from Driver iQ is the fourth in a series of quarterly surveys designed to better understand and measure recruiting and retention experiences and expectations in the truckload sector.

Driver iQ surveyed fleets representing 75,000 trucks and most responses came from dry van carriers with over $100 million in gross operating revenues.

Related: Survey Finds Fleets Bracing for More Turnover, Higher Wages