Any list of Canadian companies hiring and training for AZ?

And the Government, and the predatory trucking companies and the predatory brokers, and the predatory truck stops etc etc etc. Basically the whole industry is designed to screw the driver. That's why only desperate outsiders are willing to do it.

Don't feel bad tho, this has been going on since the 90's, it just gone critical mass since 2018. There are always new drivers in the GTA coming on here, looking for a "starter job" and get told the same thing.

I think your best bet, is to look into construction material deliveries. You will prob start out as a driver helper, but it won't be long before you're out in a picker truck, dropping off dry wall, wood, windows, shingles, etc etc etc. Its work, but it pays roughly 2X what OTR does, and its 8-5, M-F, Hourly.

I never should have stayed in freight as long as I did, if I didn't get this amazing dump job at my buddies company, I would be out doing shingle or drywall deliveries.

 

Or look into the trades , town/city worker job or look into running heavy equipment. Trucking is a low paying time wasting career. the few drivers who do make money and brag about it , in most case worked their lives away to make that income

 

You're absolutely correct about that. The amount of pretentious individuals I ever met is in Trucking. Tons of drivers just full of it and it's unfortunate. Why brag? The Egos are so larger the Andromeda galaxy would be closer if we had a comparison to their ego distance vs that galaxy. I honestly thought after being in my 20's most drivers would stop with the bs however I'm only finding more and more walking up to me exaggerating about something. It's an unfortunate industry when brokers look down on the O/o's too. The money in this business was in the 80's and before then. Now it's become a saturated business with the illusion of becoming rich. Canada Post Employees want 24% over 4 years after being offered 11% in a time that the countries Finance Minister stepped down knowing that the ship has already sunk. Everyone needs to grab their floating device to stay afloat in these times because all the signs are there.

 

Solid options also, I came from trades to trucking in 2016, when the housing/commercial building downturn, put 240 000 trades people in Alberta out of work for 4-6 years. If you're gonna do heavy equipment, try to do it in a mine, residential/commercial earthworks is a hard business, and again, its constant layoffs due to weather/projects ending/economic reasons (much like Oil and Gas).

That being said, unless Canada has another Trudeau level event, trades should be pretty steady for the next 10 years. Esp HVAC, for some reason, they just can't find people who can handle HVAC, but those who do it, say its the cleanest and highest paying trades jobs. (esp if you dual ticket with Electrical/Gas Fitter).

The best trades jobs are not in new construction, but reno's and service. Those jobs will require more thinking skills tho, which I found a lot of trades people hate LOL. They just wanna slap the same apartments/houses/warehouses together, day in day out. Which is fine, someone needs to do that job, but after my third warehouse doing fire alarm (electrician) I literally begged to get on a service truck lol.

My friends who went to Ft Mac, Sparwood, Estevan to work in the mines, never felt any economic impacts since 2001. If you can handle the 4/4 or 7/7 schedule, mining will be very rewarding.

 

Don’t overlook working for the city your in or the province. Get experience wherever you can. Even hydro.

 

If it wasn’t for the fact i have a learning disability and i don’t believe you can get special Ed for trade school. i would jump on the trades right now . My buddy was doing a plumbing apprenticeship and said the math part of the schooling is hard and there’s no extra help if you’re having problems. I’ve been thinking about trying to get a town job especially since i have my Az and it seems like town jobs are always looking for employees with a cdl . Then i see all the bs my buddy has to deal with at his town job and think screw that

I’ve been looking at roll off too but everyone wants 1 year experience, i only have 3 months of dump truck when my dad and myself got the bright idea to buy two trucks from his friend and work for him . Big mistake working for friends or family

 

@classicxl - Have you checked out NRD BiProducts?

They operate a fleet of roll offs and semi trucks collecting food scraps/waste that they deliver to farms for animal feed. Family run operation located about 10 minutes West of Erin.

 

No i haven’t to be honest i’ve never heard of them . I will check them out in the new year , thanks for the info i really want to get away from general freight. there’s too much competition and up and downs throughout the year

 

I think I mentioned before, few guys I know went to the City of Calgary in the Waterworks Dept (driving tilt deck equipment haulers, tractor trailer/low boy). They could have got me right in, pay and benefits were amazing. They said the only catch, is you have to turn off your brain and be able to eat #### all day every day (politics, drama, DEI, general BS). Hence most ppl working for the city are alcoholics. I had to pass (now 2 years in, they're not happy people lol).

Yea trade school is intense, you have to basically do a years worth of stuff in 2 months. There really isn't any accommodation for anything learning disability wise during the course, unless a specific teacher provides it. For the actual Trades Qualification Exam, you can get accommodations. The Math is what gets everyone, esp in Electrical/HVAC, but there are lots of prep resources on youtube, and the college should have tutors and study groups outside of the trades department. You basically need to learn strategies, on how to write out formulas and orders of operations from memory when a test starts (on your scrap paper), then just apply those to the questions as they come up. It is doable tho, and once you learn how do to the above, you can pretty much do any math test they throw at you. I found University math WAY harder, but there we could have multiple scientific calculators (non-programmable), in Trade School they provide the calculator for tests (very basic units) however it is open book. But, if you put in the effort and have a positive attitude, you can get it done. In Alberta you need an 70% to pass the TQ exams, Most people get in the low to mid 80's with a solid effort, guys with previous post secondary experience usually get high 80's to low 90's. I've only ever seen 1-2 guys get 94+ on a TQ exam. The only people I've seen fail, were the bar stars (1 or 2 out of a class of 30). Trades Pre-Employment Programs are a whole different deal, and I don't suggest any of those, as they won't help you much compared to just going and starting an apprenticeship with a company (They're also harder and more expensive). Some companies also don't want Pre-Employment grads, and they show up thinking they know everything, because they did 8 months in school before 1 day on the job.

Don't be fooled by that 1 year experience BS, that's just HR pre-filtering resumes. Everyone here wants 5 years of Dump exp to do truck and pup, i'm doing truck and pup with 0. Insurance only cares about your 5 year commercial abstract, and they might want an insurance letter saying you were employed full time, driving a class 1 tractor trailer (lots of fraud with experience these days). As long as you have that, should be no issue.