Transportation and Supply Chain Management | Labour Market Information Report

February 2025

This report details Manitoba and Canada’s labour market from the perspective of supply and demand for labour, and the estimated labour shortages of labour between 2025 and 2029.

Executive Summary

In 2023, the Manitoba Transportation and Warehousing Industry (MTWI) contributed approximately $4.436 billion in gross domestic product (GDP) to the provincial economy – 9.4% of total Manitoba business sector GDP.1 In 2024, it employed 49,300 full-time and part-time workers, approximately 6.8% of total Manitoba employment.

Key Findings

1. MTWI real GDP accounts for 9.4% of total Manitoba business sector real GDP (2023). This is a significant increase from 5.9% in 2022.
2. CTWI real GDP accounts for 5.5% of total Canadian business sector real GDP (2023).
3. Truck transportation, rail transportation, and pipeline transportation are Manitoba’s largest TWI sectors in terms of real GDP (2023).
4. In 2024, Manitoba exported approximately $21b in goods abroad.
5. Between 2025 and 2029, the MTWI will require 10,706 new jobs. 5,712 are due to new and expanding businesses, while 4,995 are due to retiring workers. This indicative of a younger, healthy growing industry since typically, replacement demand (retiring workers) exceeds expansion demand.
6. Between 2025 and 2029, 17,711 new MSCO will be required, 9,210 due to new and expanding businesses, and 8,501 due to retiring workers. The largest occupations in demand are transport truck drivers (4,677 new jobs), automotive service technicians, truck and bus mechanics and mechanical repairers (1,724 new jobs), and Delivery service drivers and door-to-door distributors (1,012 new jobs).
7. It is estimated that each year, between 2025 and 2029, there will be a shortage of 192 transport truck drivers (NOC – 73300) for a total of 960 over the forecast period.
8. It is estimated that each year, between 2025 and 2029, there will be a shortage of 1,005 MSCOs for a total of 5,025 over the forecast period.
9. In 2024, approximately 67.7% of the MTWI employment was in Winnipeg, compared to 66% in 2019.
10. Since 2019, all Manitoba Economic Regions have increased in terms of transportation and warehousing employment except for Parklands and North – however, this may be due to data suppression in the Statistics Canada dataset.
11. In 2021, approximately 71% of core MSCO were employed in Winnipeg with the remainder employed primarily in Winkler and Brandon.
12. In 2024, 16.6% of the MTWI is female compared to 22% in the CTWI.
13. This is far less than the overall Manitoba and Canadian averages with approximately 47% of the provincial and national workforces being female.
14. The percentage of the MTWI comprised of females has actually declined significantly since 2019 (21.8% to 16.6%) while the percentage has decreased slightly in the CTWI from 23.5% to 22%.
15. Approximately 9.3% of the MTWI identifies as Indigenous compared to 3.5% in the CTWI.
16. 15.8% of the MSCO is female. This is an increase from 15.6% in 2016. See Appendix C for a detailed breakdown of the MSCO by gender and year.
17. 11.6% of the core MSCO identifies as Indigenous. This is greater than 3.9% in the core CSCO.