Trucking wages stalled

Per mile payment to Manitoba truck drivers has stagnated over the past decade. Industry leaders blame illegal activity and an ongoing freight recession.

In both 2014 and 2024, company truckers earned an average 44 cents per mile, Manitoba Trucking Association surveys found.

Two to three dozen member businesses typically respond each year. The statistic doesn’t account for other compensation, including benefit packages and money for wait times.

“My members all generally agree — they’d love to be able to pay drivers more, but the challenge is always, ‘What does the market bear?’” said Aaron Dolyniuk, executive director of the Manitoba Trucking Association.

Lately, the market has been slow.

Every trucking company is seemingly taking cost-cutting measures to stay afloat, from layoffs to pulling back on conference attendance, Dolyniuk said. The Manitoba Trucking Association has noticed a year-over-year halving of participants in its long combination vehicle training.

“It’s usually one of our more popular courses,” Dolyniuk said. “It’s usually driven by new hires to a company, or people that are maybe growing within a company.”

Closures have occurred at firms ranging in size, Dolyniuk said, declining to share names. Reports of trucking company closures have come out of Canada and the United States.

A freight recession has been ongoing for the past three years, following a post-COVID-19 pandemic drop in demand, Dolyniuk said. The industry boomed during the pandemic; Manitoba’s transportation and warehousing sector added 2,000 employees from 2020 to 2021.

A recent trade war with the United States has further dampened demand.

Canada exported $45.1 billion worth of goods to the United States last July, down from $50.3 billion the year prior. United States imports dipped to $38.4 billion from $39.9 billion in July 2024, Statistics Canada data show.

Aka Bawar began driving trucks three years ago. He said his pay has decreased from 60 cents per mile to 50 or 55 cents.

“It’s really hard,” Bawar said outside Flying J Travel Center in Headingley, Man. “There are so many expenses.”

Kuldeep Singh said his pay has increased three cents per mile over the past seven years. He was laid off recently but found new work. Driving is competitive, especially with temporary foreign workers in the mix, he said.

“If (companies are) getting a driver on 25 cents per mile, why would they pay me 28 cents?” he shared as an example.

The Manitoba Trucking Association has tracked a widening gap between the highest and lowest reported ‘per mile’ rates.

In 2014, the pay range was 37 cents to 65 cents per mile — a gap of less than 30 cents.

Last year, there was a 40-cent gap, and the minimum reported wage had lowered. The lowest ‘per mile’ rate was 32 cents; the highest was 72 cents.

Labour trafficking and the misclassification of employees among some trucking companies has kept wages down in the general industry, Dolyniuk asserted.

Trucking associations throughout Canada have flagged a practice dubbed ‘Driver Inc.’ as cause for concern. Firms using the model misclassify their employees to avoid paying staff-related taxes and expenses.

Through this model, companies may pay their staff less and charge customers less for their services; workers might keep the full paycheque instead of seeing dollars go to government. Employees — using their company’s trucks and working solely for that company — are classified as their own businesses.

The Canadian Trucking Alliance estimates Driver Inc. businesses can shed $20,000 per employee annually.

“If you’re doing things compliantly, and you’re competing with a company that’s not, you can only pay so much before you have a loss,” Dolyniuk said.

Nationally — including in Manitoba — some drivers are asking to be paid under the table, said both Dolyniuk and Stephen Laskowski, president of the Canadian Trucking Alliance.

“The biggest fear of migration in our industry is the migration from legitimate payroll truck drivers to truck drivers demanding to be paid on the underground economy,” Laskowski said.

Greater law enforcement is needed, Laskowski continued. Requiring T4A slips, enforcing the Canada Labour Code and tax laws on personal service business models, and increasing trucking company audits would be beneficial, Laskowski said.

Historically, driver shortages have meant companies pay good wages for good drivers, Laskowski said, adding the last couple years have strained the industry.

The trucking sector contributes more than $2 billion, directly and indirectly, to Manitoba’s gross domestic product.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com