Trucking fleet operators have long complained about the difficulty of hiring and retaining enough drivers, and now a government initiative in Canada seeks to ease that challenge by studying how employers can create more diverse and inclusive workplaces.
The initiative provides $500,000 in funding for a project to help identify and address barriers that could prevent members of designated groups—women, Indigenous people, persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities—from thriving in the trucking industry.
The project is led by logistics non-profit organization Trucking HR Canada and funded through the Government of Canada’s Workplace Opportunities: Removing Barriers to Equity (WORBE) program. The groups say the study is important because Canada’s economy depends on strong trade and reliable exchange, and the nation’s truckers are at the heart of that connection.
To learn how to make trucking companies more diverse and inclusive, researchers will examine how human resources practices and workplace systems currently used in the trucking industry either support or limit those efforts. The project will also strengthen how they gather and report workforce data. In time, these initiatives are expected to create greater employment opportunities for under-represented groups within Canada’s trucking sector, they said.
“Canada’s trucking industry is built by devoted workers who keep our communities and economy moving,” The Honourable Patty Hajdu, Minister of Jobs and Families and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario, said in a release. “Today’s funding will support employers in identifying and addressing barriers that limit access to opportunities for under-represented groups in the industry. A strong and resilient workforce is built on equal opportunities, and fostering inclusivity is essential to strengthening Canada’s economy.”
The effort runs counter to some recent White House policies that some industry voices fear will make the U.S. trucking workforce less diverse and further restrict its hiring pool. In April, President Trump issued an executive order demanding stricter interpretation of an existing law requiring that truckers meet certain standards for English language use or else pull the truck over and immediately stop driving the vehicle. The Trump Administration has also required the rollback of many policies on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), although researchers have found a growing alignment between DEI goals and broader business objectives in the supply chain sector.
