Its quite common for me to earn more on a good 4 day week, than it is on a regular 5 day week or even a 6 day. I’m probably in one of the best paying driving jobs in New Brunswick over all, especially when factoring in home time and over all treatment. My base rate is .43cpm with $20 for each pick and drop and $2.50 for every empty rack I bring back when delivering plants/flowers etc.
I do a mix of our own account plant (plant as in flowers) work and general freight so my weekly mileage varies a lot. One week I may only do 2000 miles, but do 20 or more picks and drops and with all the extras I’ll take home in the bank in excess of $1000 for a 5 day week. Some weeks it could be in the 800s or 900s. Other weeks I’ll be doing general freight and still be away 5 days, possibly 6 and I may do 3000 - 3700 miles but only do 2 picks and drops. Recently I banked $1150 for six days out. However I also have shockingly bad weeks where I’ll take home a lot less. Due to my relatively high mileage rate I’m usually in the $700+ per week take home even on a bad week, though recently I did have one at about $650.
Due to the nature of my job and that for about 6 months of the year when added together, I’m doing our own plant deliveries which tend to be in New England I do less mileage than most drivers in Canada who are considered long haul. Last year I did something like 104,000 miles and grossed $150 short of $60k. When my gross wage is divided by my miles for the year my mileage rate then worked out at .57.6cpm with all the add ons etc. I also get 5 additional paid bank holidays per year above and beyond the legal requirement.
My experiences and the way I’m treated in this job are unfortunately not the industry standard though, especially for New Brunswick and probably for Canada as a whole. I have plenty of friends working for long haul firms, firms which are usually pretty decent outfits (for earnings at least) but due to the economic climate at the moment with the exchange rate the way it is with the US dollar and the resulting consequences for US exports to Canada being in shorter supply, they often sit for days at a time on no pay at all.
I do miss the long haul trips and the like but at the moment I’m working Monday to Friday 95% of the time with Saturday and Sundays at home and I’m earning more money than many of my mates who are subject to the volatile nature of mileage only pay for a Canadian general freight long haul firm. A few weeks back I finished one of my multi-drop plant runs in Ohio, they looked for a reload for a few hours, couldn’t find anything so brought be all the way back to New Brunswick empty to be in place for the next week’s run. Any of the previous firms I’d worked for would have sat my there for days without batting an eyelid.
I think its far easier to find a good job in the UK you can be comfortable in and settle down because wages don’t differ so drastically from day to day and week to week as an employed driver in the UK. Here they do but a family man obviously has constant outgoings so life with one of the bottom dwelling ■■■■ roach firms will be a roller coaster ride of financial stress and woe at the best of times unless you’ve sold a house in the UK you owned and come across with so much money you don’t mind bumming around, which to be fair is quite common with many Brits here. Much more difficult if you’re coming across with very little money and a family to support from the word go and start out with a feast and famine firm, with a heavy bias towards famine.
In the UK you can be the worst driver in the world and all you have to do is merely turn up for work and do a bit and you’ll be getting your guaranteed hourly rate or day rate, the same as the man next to you, regardless of how much you’ve done or he’s done. Here you’ll be working a ■■■■ sight harder and longer but if all things line up you’ll eventually have a batter quality of life here, or you’ll at least have more things, bigger hours etc. Quality of life will depend on each individual and what they want out of life, Canada isn’t for everyone, nor is Britain etc.
As NMM says, it’ll be harder now because LMIAs are not being thrown around like snow balls like they were when most of us came across so its not possible to pick and choose firms in the way it once was. I came across 7 years ago as a single 25 year old with no ties so I had nothing to lose by giving it a go and seeing how it went. I’m now married to a Canadian with a 9 month old baby and despite saving a shed load of money here in my first two years when I lived a grim life in the cab of a truck and last year bringing over a considerable amount from the UK at the very advantageous exchange rate, life isn’t easy, I earn very well for this part of Canada but we’re only living off my wage at the moment due to the baby and its bloody hard making any head way at all and the thought of having these sorts of expenses as a new arrival in Canada, earning the sort of money I did in my first few jobs makes me shudder. I’m pretty tight compared to most, I don’t like spending money on myself on any thing, I’ve never bought anything extravagant in Canada since being here. I’m a saving today and planning for the future type of guy, and even then its hard. In light of that, its no wonder I’ve seen so many Brits come over and head back practically bankrupt within a year or two because most of them come here on a dizzy high and splurge out on all sorts of toys, cars, houses etc and then later find they can’t afford it and start to slowly sink week by week as the wages don’t match the out goings or they have one great week of mileage or two crap ones but still can’t keep that boat afloat.
So to sum up my opinion after all this rambling, it would be that if back in 2009 I had a wife and a baby and was thinking of starting from scratch in Canada, I wouldn’t bother because I doubt I could afford to do so. If I were older and had a paid for house in the UK I could sell and then convert that huge amount of money in to Canadian dollars, then yes, might as well and if you’re a single chap looking for a bit of an adventure, which was my case back then, then why not, give it a shot if you can get an LMIA.
Its taken me a long time to get to where I am in Canada now and I’ve only being able to do so because for much of it I only had to provide for myself. Had I had a wife and child from the start, I can’t see how I’d possibly have survived those first few dark years in anything other than dank squalor in a shanty house in town which would have been so far below my standard of living in England, I’d never have bothered. Those that come here with money from a house sale in the UK definitely have a huge advantage here.
I like my life in Canada now on the most part and I’m almost certainly here for good now due to my ties here, but if my wife were interested in ever moving to England, I would give it very strong consideration at the very least. I think I like living here more, but I do feel burnt out from the job of endlessly having to chase the mile to bank the dollar. If I did ever move back to England I think it would mainly be for the work and the more predictable wage, which is something I do crave a lot.