Amid rise in U.S. women truck drivers, advocates say interest is growing in Canada
Canada may quickly see a rising variety of ladies behind the wheels of semi-trucks, if what has occurred within the U.S. trucking trade these previous couple of years is any indication of issues to come back.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, hundreds of ladies have entered the trade in America since mid-2020, filling vacancies left by the pandemic and elevating the variety of ladies in U.S. trucking to 1.6 million as of October.
That’s almost 18 per cent of the trucking workforce, an all-time excessive since 1990, when the bureau began monitoring the numbers. Most of these new hires are in driving roles.
Canada has seen a extra modest enhance following a big drop within the variety of ladies drivers early within the pandemic, and the trade’s emptiness charge nonetheless sits at 9.1 per cent, in response to a Statistics Canada labour power survey from November.
However, advocates say applications aimed toward diversifying the trade in Canada may ship a contemporary infusion of ladies and different underrepresented drivers within the subsequent few years.
WHAT THE NUMBERS SAY
The newest labour market report compiled by Trucking HR Canada analyzes job figures as much as June 2021, together with the variety of ladies in all trucking trade jobs, and the variety of ladies in driving roles.
At that time, when the proportion of ladies working in all jobs within the U.S. trucking trade was 16.5 per cent – up from 15.6 per cent in 2016 – the proportion of ladies working in all jobs in Canada’s trucking trade sat at simply over 15 per cent, up from a mean of 14.1 between 2019 and 2021.
The trade went by means of a contraction all through 2020 and into early 2021 that disproportionately affected ladies, defined Craig Faucette, chief program officer at Trucking HR Canada. So whereas the trade in Canada gained 6,400 ladies in 2021, that enhance largely introduced it again to the pre-pandemic established order.
“It doesn’t show the very sharp upswing that the U.S. data illustrates,” Faucette mentioned in a phone interview with CTVNews.ca on Friday. “Basically by June of 2021, we’re finding that we were right back to pre-pandemic numbers.”
Faucette mentioned the corporate is at the moment analyzing new census information made out there in November, which ought to shed extra mild on the job numbers past mid-2021.
Shelley Walker, CEO of the Women’s Trucking Federation of Canada (WTFC), famous there was some progress within the type of a “slight increase” within the variety of ladies getting into the trade as skilled drivers. She mentioned higher numbers of ladies have additionally taken an curiosity in enrolling in coaching applications within the final two years.
“I know from talking to a few of the truck training schools that they’ve seen an uptick in women, anywhere from three to 12 per cent,” she informed CTVNews.ca throughout a phone interview on Monday. “So the training schools are a good indication that we are bringing more women in.”
THE FUTURE OF TRUCKING
In current years, Walker mentioned, the trade has struggled to draw new staff, and teams together with ladies, racialized folks and members of the LGBTQ2S+ group nonetheless stay underrepresented.
“There is still room to grow and opportunities to be explored in getting more women in as professional drivers,” she mentioned.
Across Canada, organizations like Walker’s and Faucette’s are working to drive that development by means of scholarships, mentorship applications and work-placement applications tailor-made to individuals who establish as ladies, in addition to to youth and different underrepresented teams. And they’re getting outcomes.
In 2018, WTFC launched an annual scholarship program to cowl the total value of a truck coaching course for as much as three recipients every year. Since this system launched, Walker mentioned, scholarships have been awarded to eight ladies from throughout the nation. Out of these, seven are nonetheless within the trade.
In 2021, the group partnered with the Workforce Planning Board of Waterloo Wellington Dufferin on “Drive Forward,” a tuition-free, 12-week AZ truck licence coaching program. The program obtained funding from the federal and provincial governments, and aimed to arrange ladies, Indigenous, LGBTQ+, non-binary, seen minority, low-skill, and low-income college students for a profession within the trucking trade. Walker mentioned it had an 85 per cent success charge.
“Right now, we are waiting to hear about government funding on the federal level to run a program like that again, in four different locations, not just in Ontario,” she mentioned.
WTFC additionally tries to succeed in underrepresented teams by means of collaboration with the Skills Ontario’s Young Women’s Initiatives program, WTFC’s personal annual Bridging the Barriers convention and a Facebook mentorship group – referred to as WTFC Mentors/Mentees – which has 390 members.
As far as Walker is anxious, the trade’s survival is dependent upon its means to adapt to a altering world and welcome an more and more younger and various expertise pool.
“Too many people are focused right now on what they figure is the hot seat: the empty seat of a truck,” she mentioned. “And nobody’s putting any thought into the future. So if we don’t start getting back into our school system, we don’t start teaching kids about our industry, the ongoing driver shortage is going to continue.”
Like Walker, Faucette has his eyes educated on future generations of truck drivers. He oversees a pair of Trucking HR Canada applications – collectively often called the THRC Career Expressway – that incentivize employers to work with youth. One program affords subsidies to firms that create internship alternatives for college students in post-secondary faculty, and the opposite offers subsidies to firms that practice and rent youth who face boundaries to employment. Both launched in 2020.
Faucette mentioned ladies characterize 35 per cent of all of the folks enrolled in each applications – a lot larger than the proportion of ladies working within the trade now – and that the latter program has a hit charge of greater than 90 per cent, that means virtually all of its members have discovered jobs within the trade.
“When we see that the numbers are showing that way, we’re just happy,” he mentioned.
Faucette mentioned Trucking HR Canada plans to launch a survey of ladies each within the trade and in search of employment within the trade so as to higher perceive how employers can assist make it safer and extra equitable.
“What are the mechanisms they need in place to feel supported?” he mentioned. “And to have the ability to grow?”
He didn’t specify when that survey will launch. Walker, who drove vehicles earlier than she labored full-time with WTFC, mentioned lately she’s seen the historically male-dominated trade start to establish and deal with boundaries to inclusion.
“I’m starting to see a lot more companies that are really interested in changing their company culture to be more inclusive of women and underrepresented groups,” she mentioned. Truck stops and firm buildings that beforehand solely supplied males’s washrooms now supply different choices, she mentioned, and employers are pondering extra concerning the wants of a workforce that is not completely made up of white, middle-aged males.
“So it’s breaking down those barriers,” she mentioned, “and making (employers) start to understand those things.”
