Nine British Columbians will soon be learning the skills needed to gain employment in the trucking industry.
BC’s provincial government is providing the College of the Rockies in Golden with $650,000 to deliver skills and certification courses through its professional class one truck driver program.
The second intake of the program starts on Nov. 8 and ends next March; participants in the first intake started in July and will finish in December of this year.
“The safe transport of bulk, industrial and consumer goods is vital to British Columbia’s recovering economy,” said Nicholas Simons, minister of social development.
Students will earn:
Thirteen weeks of essential, occupational and practical skills training
Four weeks of on-the-job experience
Two weeks of support to find a job
Courses in MELT, air brake training and truck theory
Training in WHMIS, first aid, transportation of dangerous goods, truck weight and dimensions and electronic logging devices
“Trucking has always been essential to the GDP of Canada as the No. 1 way we move goods across the country,” said Leah Bradish, director of continuing education, College of the Rockies.
“COVID shone a light on the importance of trucking and these positions in our recovery.”
The program is part of BC’s Community and Employer Partnerships (CEP) project and the recruitment is focused on Indigenous individuals.
Funding is provided through the Project Based Labour Market Training stream of WorkBC’s CEP.
If you get value from KelownaNow and believe local independent media is important to our community we ask that you please consider subscribing to our daily newsletter.
If you appreciate what we do, we ask that you consider supporting our local independent news platform.
