A coalition of bicycle industry training organizations (the Bike Training Collective Canada) and supporting stakeholders are asking Employment and Social Development Canada to list bicycle mechanics as an occupation in the 2026 version of the National Occupational Classification (NOC) system.
Having bicycle mechanics listed officially as an occupation is one of the first steps needed to begin building a professional, skilled workforce for the Canadian bicycle industry.
Canada is the only nation that does not include bicycle mechanics as a separate occupation in its national list of job occupations. A review of four other country’s (USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand) and 2 supranational (UN and EU) occupation lists indicates that they all have a specific job classification listing for bicycle mechanics.
The National Occupational Classification (NOC) system is Canada’s list of job occupations and allows the collection of information on the listed jobs. There are over 40,000 job occupations listed in it.
Bicycle mechanic is not on the list of NOC occupations but is buried in a general code, NOC73209 – Other Repairers and Servicers, that includes over 100 unrelated occupations such as accordion repairer, adding machine repairer, air compressor repairer, and archery bow finisher. No useful information on individual occupations can be obtained from this code’s statistics as it is so diverse.
The information collected on individual job occupations in the NOC are critical for growing an industry and includes:
•Understanding the employment in an industry, how many people are hired per year and the career opportunities for people entering the industry.
•Helps employers determine competitive wages for employees and career advancement.
•Allows education and training organizations to identify the training needs and develop and operate training programs that serve the needs of the industry.
•The NOC listing of an occupation is a key initial prerequisite to having an occupation considered a trade (defined at the provincial level) and to support the development of skill training and apprenticeship programs.
The Bike Training Collective Canada presented a submission to the federal government on June 13th, 2025. It was supported by key stakeholders from across Canada including the Canada Electric Bike
Association, Cycle Toronto, Foresight, the Ontario Clean Technology Industry Association and the University of Toronto.The submission can be downloaded here.
https://pointa.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Submission-A-NOC-code-for-Bicycle-Mechanics-V3.6-13-jun-25.pdf
The NOC is updated once every five years. The last version was released in 2021. The next version will be released in 2026. If changes are not made in the next release it will result in having to wait till 2031 to have it considered again.
A national advocacy campaign has started to encourage the Canadian government to establish an occupation code for bicycle mechanic. A national petition that supporting stakeholders can sign to show they support this change is now live. View and sign the petition here:
This submission and petition will be used in anticipated discussions with the federal government on the need for having bicycle mechanics have its own occupation code.
Facts on the Bicycle Industry in Canada and Globally
While there is limited statistics on the bicycle industry in Canada, it has seen a boom-and-bust growth cycle since the pandemic. However long-term projections on growth are positive as cycling is a critical element to many local climate change and congestion reduction strategies.
•Retail Bicycle and Equipment Sales (2024) in Canada: $1.56 Billion Can. 1
•Number of Bicycle Shops in Canada (2025) : 1,800 estimated, 2 with each employing at least one bicycle mechanic.
The global cycling industry (2024) is estimated to be between $77 and $126 billion US annual sales with an average forecasted growth rate (CAGR) of between 7.4% and 10.5% over the next five years.
Who is the Bike Training Collective Canada?
The Bike Training Collective Canada (BTCC) is a new collaboration between several key micro mobility industry stakeholders across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, supported by the Peter Gilgan foundation, which is focused on developing a standardized and professionalized approach to training bike mechanics and ensuring that the industry can meet anticipated growth projections.
Our goal is to create a professionalized, standard set of curriculums and professional education and apprenticeship programs across Canada so that bike mechanics can become a certified trade.
