Canada's trucking and logistics sector employed roughly 804,900 people in the second quarter of 2026, and it still runs a job vacancy rate close to double the national average. That gap is the whole story behind how transportation hiring works in this country. Below is what the market actually looks like right now, what the work pays by province, which licence you need where, and how TransportationCareers.ca fits on both sides of the hire.
Quick takeaways
- Trucking HR Canada's labour tracker counted 13,310 vacant transport truck driver positions in Q1 2026, up from 11,220 in Q4 2025. The often repeated "25,000 unfilled seats" number is years out of date and should not be used for planning.
- Truck transportation ran a 4.7 percent job vacancy rate in Q1 2026 against 2.7 percent across all Canadian industries.
- Job Bank puts the national median wage for transport truck drivers (NOC 73300) at $26.42 an hour, with provincial medians ranging from $23.00 in New Brunswick to $34.00 in Yukon.
- Licence classes are set provincially. Ontario's AZ and DZ do not translate cleanly into the Class 1 and Class 3 system used across the West and in Quebec.
- Entry-level training hours differ by province: 103.5 in Ontario, 113 plus 8.5 air brake hours in Alberta, 121.5 in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, 140 in British Columbia.
What the Canadian transportation job market looks like now
The driver shortage number you should actually use
For years the sector quoted a shortfall of roughly 25,000 drivers. That figure is stale. Trucking HR Canada, which tracks Statistics Canada job vacancy tables 14-10-0443-01 and 14-10-0442-01, reported 13,310 vacant transport truck driver positions in Q1 2026. The quarterly count moved between 11,220 and 13,310 through 2025 and early 2026. Vacancies fell hard during the 2023 to 2025 freight downturn and have only recently started climbing again.
What has not changed is the gap between this sector and the rest of the economy. Truck transportation posted a 4.7 percent vacancy rate in Q1 2026 while all Canadian industries averaged 2.7 percent. About 329,600 people worked as transport truck drivers in Q2 2026, with roughly 17,800 actively looking for work. Demand is real. It is not the emergency the old number implied. Job seekers should expect to compete, and so should employers.
Where the non-driving demand sits
Drivers get the headlines, but the hiring runs across the chain: dispatchers and load planners (NOC 14404), warehouse and dock staff, shunt drivers, heavy-duty mechanics, safety and compliance coordinators, customs documentation clerks, and fleet maintenance planners. Trucking HR Canada has flagged repeatedly that pressure on non-driving roles eased less than it did for drivers. Technician hiring in particular stays tight, because the apprenticeship pipeline moves slower than the licensing pipeline.
Where the freight is
The Ontario and Quebec corridor carries the heaviest volume and the densest carrier population. Alberta and Saskatchewan demand tracks resource and agricultural cycles. British Columbia has port drayage concentrated around Metro Vancouver. Atlantic Canada runs smaller fleets with longer tenure, which means fewer postings but steadier seats. Filtering by province is not a convenience feature, it is how you find work or candidates you can actually reach.
What transportation jobs in Canada pay
Driver wages by province
Job Bank wage data for NOC 73300, updated 19 November 2025 using 2023 to 2024 Labour Force Survey reference data:
| Region | Low ($/hr) | Median ($/hr) | High ($/hr) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | 19.45 | 26.42 | 37.00 |
| Yukon | 26.50 | 34.00 | 43.27 |
| British Columbia | 22.00 | 30.77 | 40.38 |
| Alberta | 21.00 | 30.00 | 42.31 |
| Saskatchewan | 18.50 | 27.00 | 37.00 |
| Ontario | 19.23 | 26.00 | 35.00 |
| Quebec | 19.45 | 25.20 | 34.50 |
| Manitoba | 17.00 | 24.00 | 34.72 |
| Nova Scotia | 18.00 | 24.00 | 30.00 |
| New Brunswick | 17.00 | 23.00 | 32.00 |
Job Bank also reports that 79.5 percent of workers in this occupation receive at least one non-wage benefit, so a lower hourly rate with a pension and a dental plan can beat a higher rate without either.
How the pay is actually structured
Those hourly figures flatten three different pay models. Local pickup and delivery and most dedicated fleet work is hourly. Highway work is usually cents per mile. Owner-operators are typically paid a percentage of line-haul revenue. A mileage-paid driver can clear well above the provincial median in a good week and well below it in a bad one.
Ask three questions before you accept: how are the miles or hours counted, what is paid for non-driving time such as waiting, border crossings, tarping and extra drops, and is there a guaranteed weekly minimum. Those three answers explain most of the gap between what a posting advertises and what lands on the cheque.
Licence classes, decoded province by province
Ontario: A, D, G and the Z endorsement
Class A covers tractor-trailer combinations. Class D covers a single vehicle over 11,000 kg, or a combination where the towed unit is 4,600 kg or less. The Z is a separate air brake endorsement, which is why postings read AZ and DZ. Class G is the standard passenger licence and is enough for cargo van, courier and light delivery work.
The West and Quebec: Class 1, 3 and 5
AZ and DZ are Ontario terms. British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec use numbered classes. Class 1 is the tractor-trailer class and is the practical equivalent of Ontario's Class A. Class 3 is not a DZ equivalent: it covers single vehicles with more than two axles, such as dump trucks, while Ontario's Class D is defined by weight, and air brakes are handled as a separate endorsement in most of those provinces. Class 5 is the standard passenger licence. If you are moving provinces, confirm exchange rules with the receiving authority (ICBC in British Columbia, SAAQ in Quebec, the registry or ministry elsewhere) before you accept a job.
Entry-level training before the road test
National Safety Code Standard 16 set a baseline, but each province implemented it on its own terms:
- Ontario: 103.5 hours for Class A
- Alberta: 113 hours for Class 1 plus 8.5 hours of air brake training, with course fees capped by the province at $10,000
- Saskatchewan: 121.5 hours, split into 47 classroom, 17.5 in yard and 57 in cab
- Manitoba: 121.5 hours through a Professional Vocational Institute approved school
- British Columbia: 140 hours, with air brakes built into the course rather than taken separately
- Prince Edward Island: 140 hours plus 100 observation hours, required since August 2024
- Newfoundland and Labrador: approved training required since January 2024
- Quebec: mandatory approved Class 1 training since December 2025
Drivers who already held a valid Class 1 or Class A before their province's mandate took effect are generally grandfathered.
Who is hiring: carriers, 3PLs and private fleets
Asset-based carriers
Carriers own the equipment and haul freight for customers, and they are the largest employer of drivers. Today's Trucking's Top 100 ranking of Canadian fleets is headlined by TFI International, Mullen Group, Day and Ross, Bison Transport and Trimac Transportation, with Canada Cartage and Manitoulin Transport inside the top ten. Below them sit hundreds of regional fleets worth knowing: Challenger Motor Freight in Cambridge, Kriska Transportation Group in eastern Ontario, Erb Group in refrigerated freight, Rosenau Transport in Alberta, Armour Transport in Atlantic Canada. Most Canadian carriers run fewer than ten trucks, so do not judge the market by the big names alone.
3PLs and freight brokers
Third-party logistics providers arrange and manage freight, sometimes with their own assets and sometimes without. The hiring here leans toward office roles: load planners, carrier sales, dispatch, customer service and account management. C.H. Robinson and Hub Group operate at scale in Canada, and Titanium Transportation Group runs both a fleet and a brokerage. If you know freight but do not want to drive, this is the most direct route into a salaried transportation career.
Private fleets
These are companies whose core business is something else, retail, grocery, building supply or manufacturing, but which run their own trucks to serve it. Grocers such as Loblaw and Sobeys move a large share of their own volume. Private fleet work usually means dedicated routes, scheduled hours and benefits tied to the parent company's plan, which is exactly why those seats turn over slowly and draw heavy competition when they open.
Using TransportationCareers.ca if you are looking for work
Every posting on the board is a transportation or logistics role somewhere in Canada, so you are not scrolling past retail shifts to find a Class 1 opening. You can filter by driver class, including AZ, DZ, G and the provincial equivalents, by region or province, and by employer type.
A practical sequence: filter to the class you hold today and save that search, then run a second search one class up so you can see exactly what MELT would open for you and whether the pay difference justifies the tuition. Build your profile around the terms recruiters screen on first: licence class and issuing province, equipment you have actually run (reefer, flatbed, tanker, B-train, Super B, day cab, straight truck), endorsements such as air brake, dangerous goods under the TDG regulations, forklift and WHMIS, cross-border eligibility, and the state of your abstract. You can browse openings and set that profile up at TransportationCareers.ca for job seekers.
Two checks worth doing before you sign anything: look the carrier up against Trucking HR Canada's Top Fleet Employers list, and ask in plain words whether you will be an employee on payroll or an incorporated contractor.
Using TransportationCareers.ca if you are hiring
Put a number in the posting
You now have the same benchmark your candidates do. If your offer beats the $26.42 national median, or the median in your province, print the number. Postings that state pay structure, home time, equipment and route type consistently outdraw "competitive wages," and they screen out the candidates who would have quit inside ninety days. Review posting options and pricing at TransportationCareers.ca for employers.
Build screening time into the hiring plan
This sector carries checks other industries do not: a CVOR abstract in Ontario, an NSC safety fitness certificate and carrier profile elsewhere, a driver abstract, a road test, reference checks, and documented onboarding for hours of service and load securement. Tell candidates that sequence up front and give them a date. Silence between offer and start date is where good candidates disappear to the carrier down the road.
Know where Driver Inc. sits
The Canadian Trucking Alliance has pushed hard against Driver Inc., the practice of paying drivers as incorporated contractors to sidestep payroll obligations, and federal and provincial ministers have agreed to a joint enforcement effort. If you run a compliant payroll, say so in the posting. Experienced drivers who have been burned by misclassification treat that sentence as a real differentiator.
Use the funding that already exists
Provincial workforce programs cost-share employer-directed training, and small fleets rarely claim them. The Canada Job Grant agreements administered by each province, the training and recruitment programs run through the Ontario Trucking Association, Alberta Motor Transport Association, BC Trucking Association and their provincial counterparts, and Trucking HR Canada's workforce development streams all subsidize parts of onboarding and finishing training for new Class 1 and Class A drivers.
FAQ
Is this a good time to look for a driving job in Canada?
Better than 2024 or 2025, but not a seller's market. Vacancies rose to 13,310 in Q1 2026 from 11,220 the quarter before, and the sector's vacancy rate is still well above the national average, so openings exist. With roughly 17,800 drivers actively job hunting, expect to compete on abstract, experience and equipment rather than walk into an offer.
Which province pays truck drivers the most?
On Job Bank's NOC 73300 data, Yukon leads with a $34.00 median, followed by British Columbia at $30.77 and Alberta at $30.00. Cost of living and available hours matter as much as the headline rate, and highway drivers paid by the mile will not see these hourly figures reflected directly on their cheques.
Do I need MELT if I already hold a Class 1 from another province?
Generally no. Valid Class 1 and Class A holders are grandfathered under their home province's rules, and interprovincial exchanges are handled by the licensing authority where you are moving. Confirm with that authority first, because medical requirements, air brake endorsements and specialty endorsements do not always transfer automatically.
How much does Class 1 or AZ training cost?
Schools set their own prices and they vary widely by province and program length. Alberta is the exception, having capped Class 1 MELT fees at $10,000. Ask any school whether the quote includes the air brake component, the road test booking fee, and use of the school's tractor-trailer for the test, because those are commonly billed on top.
What is Driver Inc. and why do postings mention it?
Driver Inc. describes carriers paying drivers as incorporated contractors instead of employees, which shifts CPP, EI and tax obligations onto the driver. The Canadian Trucking Alliance has campaigned against the practice and governments have moved toward enforcement. If a posting says nothing about employment status, ask before you apply.
Can I work in transportation without a commercial licence?
Yes. Dispatchers and load planners, warehouse and dock staff, customs documentation clerks, safety coordinators, fleet maintenance planners and carrier sales roles need no commercial licence at all. These are the usual entry points for people moving in from adjacent work such as warehousing, customer service or field operations.
Get started
Whether you are hiring or job hunting, TransportationCareers.ca serves both sides of the market. Employers can review pricing and post a role at https://transportationcareers.ca/employers. Job seekers can browse openings and create a profile at https://transportationcareers.ca/job-seekers.