OTTAWA, Ont. — The Canadian Trucking Human Resources Council (CTHRC) has introduced a new section on its Web site that provides data on economic indicators and labour trends for fleets.

The new Labour Information Highway Demand Data Tools incorporate data and projections spanning from 1987 to 2016. Users of the online tools can access the information with drop-down menus, generating results that can be sorted nationally, regionally, provincially or by occupation.

“This is the first time in the history of the Canadian trucking industry that all of this data has been available through a single source,” says Sandy Lewis, the CTHRC’s manager of projects.

The Labour Information Highway – Basic tool, which can be accessed for free, provides Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data and the labour demand for nine key occupations, including truck drivers; truck-transport mechanics; truck-trailer technicians; parts technicians; shunt drivers; cargo workers; dispatchers; freight claims, safety and loss prevention specialists; and foremen, supervisors and managers.

The Labour Information Highway – Advanced tool offers users access to a much wider array of key economic indicators.

In addition to the GDP and labour demands for the nine key occupations, the Labour Information Highway – Advanced tool incorporates unemployment rates, details about shipments, weights, distances travelled, revenue, truck numbers, vehicle-kilometres traveled, the Consumer Price Index and population figures. Its labour data includes the size of the labour force, participation rate, incomes, wages and salaries. Details about the industry’s profitability and productivity include the weight, distance and revenue per shipment, in addition to overall revenue and tonne-kilometres traveled. Cross-border information incorporates the Canada-US exchange rate, export and import data, Canadian trucks returning from the US, the total number of trucks entering Canada, and US trucks entering Canada.

Annual subscriptions to this version of the tool are available at a cost of $350 per trucking company, association or provincial sector council.

Officials say all of these results can be used to generate graphs and populate spreadsheets with figures for further analysis.

To access both tools, visit www.cthrc.com.