Recognized as one of Canada's Top 100 Employers (2025), Top Employers for Canadians Over 40 (2024), Canada's Top Family-Friendly Employers (2024), Waterloo Area's Top Employers (2025) and Southwestern Ontario's Top Employers (2025):
By Richard Yerema and Kristina Leung, Mediacorp Canada Inc. staff editors (Nov 14, 2024)
Here are some of the reasons why Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc. / TMMC was selected as one of Canada's Top 100 Employers (2025), Top Employers for Canadians Over 40 (2024), Canada's Top Family-Friendly Employers (2024), Waterloo Area's Top Employers (2025) and Southwestern Ontario's Top Employers (2025):
- TMMC leads its industry in offering family-friendly benefits, providing maternity and parental leave top-ups for new moms (to 65 per cent of salary for 50 weeks) and parental leave top-ups for new dads and adoptive parents (to 65 per cent of salary for 35 weeks) -- and also manages a generous academic scholarship program for children of employees, to $5,000 per child
- TMMC employees and their family members gathered for a huge summer picnic with almost 6,000 people in attendance -- the event was hosted at nearby water park complete with a barbecue lunch and activities for all ages, including bowling, face painting, balloon twisters, mini-golf, and much more
- TMMC employees can take advantage of a variety of impressive onsite amenities, such as free membership (includes family members and retirees) to an impressive fitness facility with a full gymnasium, an employee lounge, a quiet room for meditation and religious observance, outdoor walking trails, basketball court, tennis courts, a soccer field, and the Teaching Garden for those wanting to exercise their green thumb
Recognized as one of Canada's Greenest Employers (2024):
Mediacorp Canada Inc. staff editors (Apr 15, 2024)
Here are some of the reasons why Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc. / TMMC was selected as one of Canada's Greenest Employers (2024):
- Green-thumbed TMMC employees manage the onsite organic Teaching Garden at the Cambridge and Woodstock locations (with product donation to local charities every year)
- TMMC has supported numerous environmental initiatives and partnerships over the years, from the Woodstock Wetland Trail Walk (constructed an extension of an existing trail in partnership with the Ministry of Natural Resources) and the Shade's Mills Conservation Centre (featuring the Toyota Nature Centre and Toyota Nature Trails) to the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada (support for Friends of the Watershed initiative to engage with the next generation)
- NEW - TMMC encourages all employees to get involved in environmental initiatives through its unique Environmental Kaizen (continuous improvement activities) awards competition, where teams of employees submit creative ideas for environment-focused improvements
‘Continuous improvement’ is green at Toyota
Miye Cox has been working on environmental issues at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc. (TMMC) for 26 years, but she and her team were still a bit surprised to learn of a new green project back in 2017. That was creation of a 1.5-km extension to southwest Ontario’s Vansittart Woods trail that would loop through the property of Toyota’s Woodstock, Ont., vehicle manufacturing plant. “All of my team are engineers, so biodiversity was a new thing for us,” she says.
But it’s a good example of Toyota’s commitment to sustainability in all fields where it can make a difference. Biodiversity is one of the six Toyota 2050 Environmental Challenges that the global carmaker focuses on, and which are core to the operations of TMMC’s two Canadian plants. Cox’s team is now responsible for 73 bird boxes on the trail in Woodstock and another six at Toyota’s plant in Cambridge, Ont. They also count the number of eggs and hatched birds each year (337 fledglings in 2023).
“Usually we’re more on the process side, like paint processes and wastewater treatment plant processes,” says Cox, senior manager, environmental engineering, based at the Cambridge plant and a chemical engineer by training. “So for us, getting to the outside areas, it was a joy to bring that to life.”
Among Toyota’s five other 2050 challenges, three involve reducing carbon dioxide emissions – via vehicle design, through supplier partnerships and, especially relevant to Cox, in plant operations. The other two involve water conservation and recycling, also in Cox’s mandate.
The two Canadian plants have made important innovations that have won a series of Toyota’s internal Environmental Kaizen (“continuous improvement”) awards for the North American region and globally. In the past year, a group of team members came up with an automatic shutoff system for electric pumps when production is stopped, and another group arranged to eliminate the paper that covers parts shipped to the plants in returnable containers.
In addition, when painted plastic bumpers fail quality-control inspection, the plants can now regrind them down to pellets and build new bumpers from them. “We’re the first plant to do that activity for painted bumpers,” says Cox.
Annually, a celebration that started for the company as Earth Day became Earth Week and now, she says, is Earth Month, when a series of team engagement activities go on all over the company. “I am very proud that I work at Toyota because it’s so driven toward environmental protection.”
Bob Ruggieri, vice-president, manufacturing, and environmental director for TMMC, says he, too, was struck by Toyota’s strong green policies when he joined straight out of university in 1997. “That was very new for someone like me, and honestly, that level of intensity never subsided over the last 27 years.”
Toyota introduced the hybrid Prius in Japan in 1997 and North America in 2000, and has continued to champion emission-reducing hybrids as an important part of Toyota’s approach to electrification and sustainability ever since. It produces hybrid vehicles at its Canadian plants. But Ruggieri adds that battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids are also important offerings within Toyota’s electrified vehicle line-up. Further, the company expects to see far more efficient BEVs, with a 1,000-km range and very short charging times, within the coming decade, and is investing in BEVs.
Meanwhile, last year, the Canadian plants set an emission reduction target of two per cent and achieved 13 per cent, Ruggieri says. He and his colleagues constantly look for ways to reduce energy use. “Sustainability is ingrained in everything we do,” he says. “It’s almost taken for granted.”
Recognized as one of Canada's Top Employers for Young People (2025):
By Kristina Leung, Chantel Watkins, and Cypress Weston, Mediacorp Canada Inc. staff editors (Jan 20, 2025)
Here are some of the reasons why Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc. / TMMC was selected as one of Canada's Top Employers for Young People (2025):
- TMMC offers a paid co-op program, hiring students in multiple areas of the business including engineering, production control, quality control, human resources and finance, to name a few -- the organization also recently introduced a new graduate hiring program as a means to retain co-op students for full-time positions upon graduation
- TMMC maintains a formal career path program that identifies the training and competencies required for employees to move along their desired career progression -- teams can also keep track of skills and certifications through a career development plan, where employees can build their skills inventory and create a career portfolio
The Career Directory
Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc. / TMMC has been selected for The Career Directory, our guide to entry-level recruitment for recent college and university graduates.
