ID 51847771 © Carolyn Franks | Dreamstime.com

By Nick Nielsen

50% of truckers in province over 45 years old

Sask. Truckers Association looking for funding to inspire young truckers

Jun 19, 2025 | 5:18 PM

The trucking industry in Saskatchewan is getting older and older, and that’s going to become a problem as more and more truckers start to retire from their roles. The Saskatchewan Trucking Association (STA) claims there are about 11,600 truckers in the province, and over 50 per cent of them are 45 years or older.

That’s why the STA is asking the provincial government to start giving the Saskatchewan trucking industry some ways to incentivize the younger generation to enter the industry. Executive director for the STA Susan Ewart said that the jobs are waiting for people to occupy, there just isn’t the workforce coming in to fill those spots.

“COVID moved people towards retirement, there was definitely that, but then after sort of the pandemic and the industry started to rebound, we are still seeing about 6.4 per cent in vacancy rate for trucking in Saskatchewan, which is about 2.4 per cent higher than any other sector in our province. So there still is a demand and there’s a lot of positions still available today in trucking.”

The biggest hurdle to climb for people to get into the trucking business is the cost. Right now, the average price for a Class 1A driver training school in Saskatchewan is about $14,000. The businesses that teach these courses are not a typical school or college, so there are not student loans available for anyone looking to begin.

Part of reason the costs of trucking schools have gone up so much has to do with new rules and regulations put in place after the Humboldt Broncos bus crash in 2018. In 2018, there were 5,728 Class 1A issued in Saskatchewan according to SGI, and that number dropped to 5,081 in 2019, and 4,653 in 2020, and that number has continued to go down since.

tradition

LLRIB member invited to partake in historic military role in London

13h ago

Smart meters

SaskPower installing smart meters in Melfort area

13h ago

Missing since July 9

Melfort RCMP searching for missing 19-year-old

Jul 19, 2025

“This terrible tragedy brought about some positive change which was bringing and introducing mandatory entry level training, but with that came a larger price tag, and then it created more barriers to entry to the industry. If you look at the SGI statistics prior to Humboldt and then after Humboldt on the number of 1A licenses that were issued, it was like thousands of people different.”

When it comes to how the STA wants to see the system change, there are a few different avenues to explore. While discussions on how to move forward still need to be had, Ewart believes that there is a solution that could include loans to people attending trucking school, as well as tax incentives to employers looking to hire truckers for their businesses.

“So if a trucking company today wants to hire a new individual, they’ve got the right attitude, they’re going to hire for attitude and train those skills, there’s no funding for an employer to access either to help offset those costs. There was, but the government of Saskatchewan only recently stopped all of that funding through the Saskatchewan job grant. So that is no longer available. Driver training schools in the province of Saskatchewan have seen a drastic decline in business.”

Ewart added, “I think what needs to happen is stakeholders in the industry, like the (Saskatchewan) Trucking Association and driver training schools, need to sit down with government to have these conversations to figure out how we can definitely attract the next generation of truck drivers. We need to look at things like loans, we need to look at things like bursaries or scholarships. I think there’s a lot of options that we could bring to the table and have discussions on to support the industry today.”