Canada could soon see a growing number of women behind the wheel of semi trucks, if what has happened in the US trucking industry in recent years is any indication of things to come.
According to the US Bureau of Labor StatisticsThousands of women have entered the industry in the United States since mid-2020, filling vacancies left by the pandemic and bringing the number of women in US trucking to 1.6 million as of October.
That’s nearly 18 percent of the trucking workforce, an all-time high since 1990, when the bureau began tracking the numbers. Most of those new hires are in leadership roles.
Canada has seen a more modest increase following a significant drop in the number of women drivers early in the pandemic, with the industry’s vacancy rate still sitting at 9.1 per cent, according to a Statistics Canada workforce survey from november.
However, advocates say that programs aimed at diversifying the industry in Canada could provide a new infusion of women and other underrepresented drivers for years to come.
WHAT THE NUMBERS SAY
The last labor market report compiled by Trucking HR Canada looks at job figures through June 2021, including the number of women in all trucking industry jobs and the number of women in driving roles.
At that time, when the proportion of women working in all jobs in the US trucking industry was 16.5% (up from 15.6% in 2016), the proportion of women working in all jobs in Canada’s trucking industry stood at just over 15%. , compared to an average of 14.1 between 2019 and 2021.
The industry experienced a contraction throughout 2020 and early 2021 that disproportionately affected women, explained Craig Faucette, program director for Trucking HR Canada. So while the industry in Canada gained 6,400 women in 2021, that increase mostly returned it to the pre-pandemic status quo.
“It doesn’t show quite the sharp rebound that the US data illustrates,” Faucette said in a phone interview with CTVNews.ca on Friday. “Basically, by June 2021, we found that we were back to pre-pandemic numbers.”
Faucette said the company is currently analyzing new census data available in November, which should shed more light on job numbers beyond mid-2021.
Shelley Walker, executive director of the Women’s Trucking Federation of Canada (WTFC), noted that there has been some progress in the form of a “slight increase” in the number of women entering the industry as professional drivers. She said that more women have also been interested in enrolling in training programs in the last two years.
“I know from talking to some of the truck training schools that they have seen an increase in the number of women, anywhere from 3 to 12 percent,” she told CTVNews.ca during a phone interview on Monday. “So the training schools are a good indicator that we are attracting more women.”
THE FUTURE OF TRUCKS
In recent years, Walker said, the industry has struggled to attract new workers, and groups including women, people of color and members of the LGBTQ2S+ community remain underrepresented.
“There is still room to grow and opportunities to be explored to attract more women as professional drivers,” she said.
Across Canada, organizations like Walker’s and Faucette’s are working to fuel that growth through scholarships, mentoring programs, and job placement programs designed for people who identify as women, as well as youth and other underrepresented groups. And they are getting results.
In 2018, WTFC launched an annual scholarship program to cover the full cost of a truck training course for up to three recipients each year. Since the program launched, Walker said, scholarships have been awarded to eight women from across the country. Of those, seven are still in the industry.
In 2021, the organization partnered with the Waterloo Wellington Dufferin Workforce Planning Board in “Boost,” a tuition-free 12-week AZ truck license training program. The program received funding from the federal and provincial governments, and aimed to prepare female, indigenous, LGBTQ+, non-binary, visible minority, low-skilled, and low-income students for a career in the trucking industry. Walker said he had an 85 percent success rate.
“Right now, we’re waiting to hear about funding from the government at the federal level to run a program like that again, in four different places, not just Ontario,” he said.
WTFC also tries to reach underrepresented groups through collaboration with Skills Ontario’s Young Women’s Initiatives programme, WTFC’s own annual Bridging the Barriers conference and a Facebook mentor group, called WTFC Mentors/Mentees, which has 390 members.
As for Walker, the industry’s survival depends on his ability to adapt to a changing world and welcome an increasingly young and diverse talent pool.
“Too many people are focused right now on what they think is the hot seat: the empty seat of a truck,” he said. “And nobody thinks about the future. So if we don’t start going back to our school system, we don’t start teaching kids about our industry, the driver shortage will continue.”
Like Walker, Faucette has his eyes set on future generations of truckers. He oversees a couple of Trucking HR Canada programs, collectively known as the THRC Career Expressway, that incentivize employers to work with youth. One program provides grants to businesses that create internship opportunities for post-secondary students, and the other provides grants to businesses that train and hire youth who face employment barriers. Both were released in 2020.
Faucette said that women make up 35 percent of all people enrolled in both programs, far more than the proportion of women working in the industry now, and that the latter program has a success rate of more than 90 percent, which means that almost all of its participants have found jobs in the industry.
“When we see the numbers show up that way, we’re happy,” he said.
Faucette said Trucking HR Canada plans to launch a survey of women both in the industry and seeking employment in the industry to better understand how employers can help make it safer and more equitable.
“What are the mechanisms they need to feel supported?” he said. “And have the ability to grow?”
He did not specify when that survey will be released. Walker, who was a truck driver before working full-time with WTFC, said that in recent years he has seen the traditionally male-dominated industry begin to identify and address barriers to inclusion.
“I’m starting to see a lot more companies that are really interested in changing their business culture to be more inclusive of women and underrepresented groups,” she said. Truck stops and company buildings that previously only offered men’s restrooms now offer other options, he said, and employers are thinking more about the needs of a workforce that isn’t entirely made up of white, middle-aged men. .
“So it’s breaking down those barriers,” he said, “and getting (employers) to start understanding those things.”