Load and unload the ships that carry almost everything you own. Union work, hard to get into, hard to leave.
Click through it
Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
The median pay is about $68,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $40,000 at the lower end to about $106,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
1 to 5 years, on the usual route, and you are paid while you train from the first day.
$200 to $700 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no licence to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Moderate demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$68,000
Lower end
$40,000
Upper end
$106,000
Job Bank's national median is $32.81 an hour, about $68,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The lower end ($19.18) and upper end ($51.14) are the bottom and top of the wage range for everyone in the group, which Job Bank calls dockworkers.
Paid by the shift
Only for the shifts you actually get called for
The honest problem with year one is not the rate, it is the hours. Casuals take what is left after the union members are dispatched, which can be a few shifts a week.
$48.81 an hour
Job Bank's median for the province, about $102,000 a year at 40 hours a week
Ontario's median is only $22.50, because its ports are smaller and more seasonal. At the Port of Montreal, the MEA (Maritime Employers Association) reports an hourly rate of $43.04. The catch is how long it takes to get in.
Roughly, all in
$200 to $700
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
There is no school for this and no tuition. You buy boots, a safety vest and a hard hat, and you pay for a federal port security clearance, which is a background check with a fee usually under $200. Safety training is provided by the employer or the union training centre. The cost here is time rather than money: getting from your first casual shift on the call board to full union status can take years, and income is unpredictable until then.
The cost is time, not money. Getting from your first casual shift to full union status can take years.
Union pension
One of the main reasons people wait years for a spot.
Extended health, dental and vision
Overtime and shift premiums
Ports run around the clock, so nights and weekends are part of the schedule.
Seniority protection
Once you are in, dispatch and layoffs follow the seniority list, not a manager's opinion.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
There is no program to apply to. You get on a list, you take shifts, you wait.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Helpful but not always required, except in Quebec, where the MEA (Maritime Employers Association) asks for one. Being 18 or older and physically capable is.
Get a port security clearance
Weeks to months
Working inside a marine terminal means a federal background check. A criminal record can end the plan here.
Get onto the casual list
The wait can be months or years
Casual hiring is run by the union hall or the employers' association at each port, and openings are posted rarely. Watch for them and apply the day they appear.
Work casual shifts
1 to 5 years
You show up to the dispatch hall and take whatever work is handed out. Gangs, lashing, driving, hold work.
Union membership
Varies by port
Enough hours and seniority moves you onto the union board, which is when the pay, the pension and the steady hours start.
Physical education
Lashing containers and working a hold is heavy, repetitive work.
Shop or technology
Terminals run on machinery.
Math
Load planning, weights and stowage.
English
Safety instructions on a busy dock have to be understood the first time.
There is no certificate that makes you a longshore worker. What there is instead is a closed hiring system. At the west coast ports the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada is the bargaining agent for the people who load, unload and check cargo, and it represents over 7,200 members across twelve local chapters. Montreal, Halifax, Saint John and the Great Lakes ports have their own unions. At most ports the union controls dispatch, so your path in runs through the hall, not through a company's careers page. In Montreal, Trois-Rivières and Bécancour you apply through the MEA (Maritime Employers Association) portal instead.
At the ports of Montreal, Trois-Rivières and Bécancour you apply to the MEA (Maritime Employers Association), the employers' group, which hires longshore workers and trains them on pay.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
The MEA (Maritime Employers Association) asks for a high school diploma or the equivalent, and a valid driver's licence.
Apply on the MEA careers portal
Varies
Since 2014 the unions have supplied half of the candidate lists. In 2022 an arbitrator found the old union selection discriminatory and ordered a new process.
Background checks
Weeks to months
Independent firms and Transport Canada check your background. A criminal record that does not fit port work rules you out.
Paid training
From hiring
At the MEA Harbour Training Centre, which uses virtual and augmented reality simulators. Training continues on pay through your career.
Work the availability system
Ongoing
In Montreal you must be available on set days. Workers must be available 19 out of 21 days. In 2023 they worked on average 12 out of 21 days, and are paid for availability even on days they do not work.
Figures published by the MEA (Maritime Employers Association), which is the employers' side in contract talks.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Container crane operator
The top of the ladder on a container terminal.
Reach stacker and top pick
Heavy container-handling machines. Training is usually done in house.
Forklift and mobile equipment
The most common first ticket, and it gets casuals called more often.
Lashing and checking
Cargo securing and tallying. Steady work on every vessel that comes in.
A clean criminal record
Port security clearance is not negotiable, and this is where most people fall out.
Heavy equipment experience
Construction, warehouse or farm machinery time gets you into the operator queue sooner.
Somebody who already works there
Ports are word-of-mouth places, and knowing when the casual list opens matters more than your resume.
A second income for the first year or two
Casual hours are unpredictable. Plan for it.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
You call the dispatch hall or check the board to see if you are working, and which shift. On the dock you might be lashing containers on a ship's deck, driving a truck between the crane and the yard, working in a hold, or running a piece of heavy equipment. Shifts are normally eight hours with set break times, and a vessel on a tight schedule means overtime is offered constantly. It is outdoors, in whatever the weather does, beside machinery that will not survive a mistake. Ports run day, afternoon and night shifts every day of the year.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
At the Port of Montreal the employers' association pays 20% of base salary into the longshore pension fund, with nothing taken from the worker. Average pay with benefits was $171,008 in 2023.
Job Bank counted only about 7,300 dockworkers in all of Canada in 2023. The Port of Montreal alone has nearly 1,460 longshore workers and checkers.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Sea first, then the rest of the field. See every career in transport.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
Tell us about this page. A person reads every message.
No email app on this device? Use Gmail instead: report a mistake in Gmail or say what you like in Gmail.