Hello everybody, I follow this forum for a while and finally decided to “shoot” you with a question. I’m planning to try to find a job as a trucker in Canada probably in a year or two ( I know that the situation there is thought and it will probably get tougher, but I really want to try and will never forgive myself if I don’t). I currently have two offers for a class 1 job here in UK. One is for a fridge trailer and the other one is for a flatbed. So basically my question is which of these two types of job are more in demand in Canada and which one will give me better chance to find a job there. It probably doesn’t make big difference, but when the chances are smaller “every penny counts”. Thank you.
Either job will be fine. Most companies here will take a driver on without experience in their particular field. On a personal level, it would make for a much easier life if you came to Canada as a flat bed driver and had flat bed experience. Anyone with two brain cells can do reefer work, proof of such if needed is that I had no reefer experience when I came here and did perfectly fine. I wouldn’t want to be thrown off the deep end in Canada with a flat bed without knowing what I was doing though.
Personally, I’d recommend dry van work, especially over reefer work. Generally speaking you have much less downtime and that’s hugely important when you get paid by the mile. I can’t offer an opinion on flat bed work, other than I imagine its bloody awful at this time of year in Canada and the northern US.
Ultimately though, no reefer or flat bed firm that needs to employ foreign drivers will turn you down for not having the experience on their type of trailers so just do what you want to do now.
Both are in high demand especially Western Canada , ultimaetly flat deck would be healthier as you work out and you get extra for sheeting and tarping loads a bit more head work involved and permits required to go through certain states , oversized is where the big money Is
Your problem won’t be the type of work you can do, it will be finding a company to employ you under the new LMIA system.
LMIA will be getting more & more hard to come by as the amount of staff on WP is due to decrease by another 10% this summer and a further 10% next summer unless things change.