Women’s Employment Rate in the Logistics Sector Rises to 11.2% in 2024

Women’s Employment Rate in the Logistics Sector Rises to 11.2% in 2024

• The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transportation (CILT), one of the world’s largest logistics organizations, has seen its women’s division, Women in Logistics and Transportation (WiLAT), make significant progress in increasing the number of women in the Turkish logistics sector.
• Since its inception, WiLAT has prioritized awareness initiatives to boost female employment. Over the past three years, the percentage of women in the logistics and transportation sector has risen from 9.1% to 11.2%.
• The increase in female employees is expected to transform and develop the logistics sector, traditionally seen as male-dominated. WiLAT, the women’s division of CILT, has launched a new project to increase the number of female drivers and challenge the male-dominated perception of the industry.

Women Drivers Project

WiLAT’s “Women Drivers Project” aims to identify, train, and support female driver candidates. At the project’s launch meeting, Berna Akyıldız, CILT Turkey President and WiLAT founding president, stated, “As a global institution, CILT, under the leadership of WiLAT, has been working intensively for the past three years to increase female employment in Turkey’s logistics sector and raise awareness among companies in this field. According to the latest data from TÜİK, the female employment rate has risen from 9.1% to 11.2% in the past three years. While this growth is encouraging, female employment in our sector remains very low, primarily because the proportion of women among blue-collar workers is much lower.”

Akyıldız added, “With our Women Drivers Project, we aim to identify, train, and support female driver candidates. We are also collaborating with companies that will employ these drivers and advocating for this cause across all platforms.”

WiLAT President Esra Kıvrak shared details about the project’s roadmap. She emphasized, “The Women Drivers Project is a crucial step for increasing female employment in the sector and addressing the commercial need for drivers. There is a need for female drivers, and it is essential to create human resources for this male-dominated profession and convince the other half of the population to join the sector. This need is felt worldwide as well as in our country. WiLAT has successful examples in various countries, and we believe our project in Turkey will inspire the global sector and aim for wider dissemination. We invite all stakeholders with similar missions to contribute to our project.”

The project is divided into four phases:

1. Phase 1: City cargo, courier, panel van delivery, school bus driving, etc.
2. Phase 2: Small vehicle transport to nearby countries, partial transport with panel vans
3. Phase 3: Short-distance heavy vehicle driving
4. Phase 4: Long-distance heavy vehicle driving

Kıvrak noted that the project, in addition to increasing female employment, is expected to have long-term positive impacts on the profession’s reputation and the sector’s image. “We foresee that our project will make a strong contribution to international initiatives such as attracting young people to the sector and improving large truck fleets.”