The CEO of Trucking HR Canada, Angela Splinter says she already knew that there was a shortage of long-haul truck drivers in the industry, so she wasn’t too surprised to see the results of the recently released Labour Market Information National Report.
What Splinter didn’t expect to find in the report was that how the shortage was directly affecting existing employees. “The level of stress it was causing the current employees within the workplace, it measures just as high as lost sales” says Splinter.
According to the LMI report, this shortage has resulted in delayed expansion plans for trucking operators. On average, long-haul drivers have a 9.4% job vacancy rate – a figure that is way higher than the national unemployment average of 3.3% overall. Even though the truck drivers represent 46% of the industry, they account for 63% of vacancies and the total number of those vacancies in Canada has rapidly seen an increase to 138% between 2016 and end of 2019 to 20,500 from 8,600. According to the report if no action is taken, vacancies can go as high as 25,000 by 2023, which would be an increase of over 25% from 2019.
The report has made various recommendations on how to overcome this shortage, by identifying best practices that specifically support better recruitment and incorporation of more diverse labour talent, develop a strategy to effectively reach millennials, and increase women’s participation.
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