Help update trucking labor data

If you’ve participated in a Trucking HR Canada webinar or event, you’ve probably heard us talk about our commitment to providing evidence-based HR solutions for the trucking industry. We take this commitment seriously, backing our work with the latest data to ensure the materials and tools we release are timely and aligned with the industry’s challenges and opportunities at any moment.

How do we maintain this data-driven, evidence-based approach? It’s all thanks to our Labour Market Information (LMI) research.

Our LMI facilitates better decisions by employers, workers, job seekers, policymakers, educators, career practitioners, academics, students, parents, and more. It takes data from publicly available sources, including Statistics Canada’s census and labour force surveys, and fills in the gaps with qualitative and quantitative research taken directly from employers.

With the release of 2021 Census data and a new version of the government’s National Occupation Classification (NOC) system, it’s time for us to update our LMI dataset.

But we’re not just plugging new numbers into an old spreadsheet. Instead, with funding from the Government of Canada through the Sectoral Workforce Solution Program, we are refining our LMI system and expanding the definition of the trucking and logistics industry that powers our research.

A refined system

Here’s what that means:

• Our new custom dataset will include 37 unique occupations in trucking and logistics, up from the 30 included in our 2019 forecast. This expanded definition is important because it allows us to paint a more fulsome and nuanced picture of the industry than would be possible if we used the more limited definition implied by the NOC taxonomy.

• Along with data on employment, unemployment, and vacancies, our new LMI system will include demographic data, allowing additional insight into the composition of the trucking labour force.

• The new dataset will allow us to extend our labour market forecast by five years, from 2023 to 2028. We can capture a longer view of macroeconomic shifts, including inflation, interest rates, supply chain constraints, and tightness in the labour market.

The key ingredients of our forecasts are Census data, job vacancy and wage survey data, and labor force survey data. They provide insight into employment and unemployment levels, as well as inflows and outflows of workers, including new entrants to the labor force, those entering via immigration or the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, and those exiting for retirement or other reasons.

New employer survey

While data from public sources is crucial, it tells only part of the story.

That’s why our new LMI project includes a comprehensive employer survey. Last undertaken by Trucking HR Canada in 2019, this survey captures information about employment relationships, compensation structures, and hiring and recruitment challenges. It’s essential to our ability to capture industry-specific labor market trends accurately.

Our LMI surveys also inform the development of our HR tools and resources and have helped us secure funding for our Career ExpressWay program, which provides financial incentives to employers onboarding or training eligible job candidates, including students, youth, and current employees training to obtain a commercial vehicle licence.

Given the changes in the industry and economy since 2019, and the development of our new custom dataset, it’s high time we conduct the survey again so employers can benchmark their practices in today’s competitive labor market.

Our ability to accurately capture industry-specific labor market trends will depend on the number of survey responses we receive, and that’s where you come in. If you are an employer in the trucking and logistics industry, please take a moment to complete our employer survey.

If you have questions about our survey or LMI work, contact us at [email protected]. You can learn more about LMI at our LMI website, which has our latest LMI Snapshot, published this month with new data and insights, as well as more information about how our LMI benefits employers in trucking and logistics.