Order picker: pay in Quebec and Greater Montreal
An order picker pulls the items of a customer order from warehouse locations, line by line, and assembles them before shipping. Around Montreal, the work sits in the distribution centres of Saint-Laurent, Lachine, Laval, the South Shore and Vaudreuil-Dorion. This page covers the picking itself, the rate, the shifts, what you need to start, and pay region by region.
- Quebec median
- $22/h
- Range
- $16.94 – $31.32/h
- Montreal
- $21/h
Guichet-Emplois (Job Bank), edition 2025 · CNP 75101
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Order picker pay, region by region
| Region | Low | Median | High | vs Quebec | Offered in postings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All of Quebec | $16.94 | $22 | $31.32 | — | — |
| Montérégie | $19.09 | $23.28 | $31.90 | +6% | $22.50 (284) |
| Montréal | $16.10 | $21 | $26 | −5% | $22.66 (134) |
| Laval | $16.10 | $21 | $30.50 | −5% | $23.20 (29) |
| Lanaudière | $18.50 | $22.74 | $38 | +3% | $20.96 (69) |
| Laurentides | $18 | $20.80 | $30 | −5% | $21 (53) |
The table reads NOC 75101, “Material handlers”. The title order picker does not appear in that group: the classification lists “fill orders in a warehouse” among its duties, alongside forklift operator, material handler and truck loader. The wage shown covers the whole warehouse floor, not picking on its own. Filling customer orders in a retail store falls under another occupation, NOC 65102.
Low, median and high wages published by Job Bank (NOC 75101), and pay offered in Greater Montreal job postings (6 months, February to August 2026); in brackets, the number of hourly postings — under ten, no median is shown.
Quebec median by file edition: 2023: $20/h · 2024: $21/h · 2025: $22/h.
What the job postings say
Of 590 postings on Job Bank in Greater Montreal (6 months, February to August 2026), 4% mention a night shift, 12% an evening shift and 6% weekends.
Picking follows the trucks' departure time, not office hours. Next-day orders are often built in the evening and overnight, and food distribution runs seven days a week. The “What the job postings say” block above gives the share of Greater Montreal postings that mention evenings, nights and weekends for this occupation. The shift mainly changes two things for the person: the volume that has to clear before the dock closes, and whether anyone is around to make the call when a location turns up empty. Part-time and weekend shifts exist, mostly in food distribution and parcel sorting.
What an order picker does
- Read the pick list, the on-board terminal screen or the voice headset prompt, and follow the pick path through the zone.
- Pull items from the location shown, by unit, by case or by full pallet, and confirm every line on the scanner.
- Build the pallet or tote: heavy loads at the bottom and to the back, fragile goods on top, nothing crushed.
- Wrap, label and drop the finished order in the shipping bay or on the conveyor.
- Pack, cushion and weigh cartons when the order ships by the piece rather than on a pallet.
- Operate the zone's motorized hand pallet jack or order picker truck, within the authorization you were given.
- Check the item number, the format and the date before dropping a product into the order.
- Report empty locations, stockouts and products slotted in the wrong spot.
- Replenish pick locations from reserve pallets where the zone is set up that way.
- Take part in cycle counts for your zone and fix picking errors caught at order check.
Requirements, cards and certifications
- Able to walk, bend, lift and place for a full shift: the CNESST, Quebec's workplace health and safety board, names repeated movements and applied force among the main musculoskeletal risk factors.
- Reads item numbers, formats and location codes accurately — a line picked from the wrong slot comes back as a return.
- Comfortable with a scanner, an on-board terminal or a voice picking headset, depending on the warehouse system.
- Training on the motorized hand pallet jack when the role calls for one: the CNESST ties that machine to section 256.2 of the Règlement sur la santé et la sécurité du travail (Quebec's health and safety regulation) for the minimum age of sixteen, and to section 256.3 for training.
- Forklift training under section 256.3 of the same regulation as soon as picking happens from an order picker truck that rises to the upper levels.
- WHMIS training (SIMDUT in French) in warehouses that receive or store hazardous products.
- Tolerance for cold in refrigerated and frozen zones: the CNESST notes that working in the cold reduces blood flow to the extremities and raises muscle tension and fatigue.
- Punctuality: a picking wave starts at a fixed time, and one missing line holds up the whole order.
Training
No diploma is required. Job Bank states that some secondary school education may be asked for this occupation, and nothing beyond that. Inforoute FPT lists no DEP (secondary vocational diploma) and no AEP covering order picking: the training happens at the employer's site in the first days, on their warehouse management system, their picking equipment and the layout of their aisles. WHMIS and motorized hand pallet jack training are added where the site calls for them. To move toward the office side of logistics later, Inforoute FPT lists the AEC Spécialisation en chaîne logistique intégrée (LCA.FC, a college attestation in integrated supply chain), offered at Cégep de Bois-de-Boulogne in Montreal, three hundred and ninety hours, evenings and part-time. Cégep Garneau also runs a reconnaissance des acquis et des compétences — formal recognition of prior learning — in transport and logistics management, for people with years of warehouse work behind them.
Career path
Picking leads elsewhere in the building fast. Forklift training moves you onto lift trucks and replenishment. Fluency with the system moves you into order quality checking, shipping or cycle counting. Someone who knows the aisle layout by heart usually ends up as a wave lead, then shift supervisor. Wave planning and logistics coordination generally call for a college diploma.
Frequently asked questions
What does an order picker do?
An order picker pulls the items of a customer order from warehouse locations, gathers them on a pallet, in a tote or in a carton, and hands them off to shipping. They work from a pick list, a terminal screen or a voice prompt, confirm each line on the scanner, build the load so it travels intact, and flag empty locations. The National Occupational Classification files this work under “fill orders in a warehouse”.
How much does an order picker make in Quebec?
The table above gives the low, median and high of the scale for Quebec and for each Greater Montreal region, from Job Bank, plus what is offered in current postings. Three things move the figure: the region, the shift and the type of warehouse. Frozen storage and piece picking do not sit at the same point on the scale as full-pallet work.
What three qualities make a good order picker?
Accuracy, stamina and consistency. Accuracy first: a line pulled from the wrong slot comes back as a return and shows up in the zone's error rate. Stamina next, because the shift is spent standing, walking and repeating the same movements. Consistency last: the rate is measured by the hour, and a late wave holds the truck.
What are the five most common order picking methods?
Single order picking, batch picking, zone picking, wave picking, and two-step picking, where one crew pulls the items and a second splits them by order. One warehouse often runs two of them side by side: zone picking in the pallet aisles, batch picking for small piece orders. The choice depends mostly on how many lines an average order carries.
What is the difference between an order picker and a material handler?
The picker works by the line, the material handler by the pallet and the truck. The first follows a list, walks the aisles, and has accuracy measured order by order; the second loads, unloads and palletizes at the pace the trailers set at the dock. Both sit in the same occupation, NOC 75101, and cross paths in the same building. At hiring, what separates them is the scanner and the rate.
Do you need a licence or a card to be an order picker in Quebec?
No card is required to pick on foot. What gets added depends on the machine. For a motorized hand pallet jack, the CNESST points to section 256.2 of the Règlement sur la santé et la sécurité du travail for the minimum age of sixteen, and to section 256.3 for training. For an order picker truck that rises to height, it is the forklift training in that same section. WHMIS training applies wherever hazardous products are stored.
Can you become an order picker with no experience?
Yes. It is one of the entry doors into warehousing, and the training happens on site within days: the aisle layout, the scanner or the voice headset, how to build a pallet that holds. What an employer looks at first is accuracy over the first weeks and real availability for the shift on offer. The expected rate is reached gradually.
Is picking orders in a store the same job?
Not quite, and the classification says so. Picking in a distribution centre falls under NOC 75101, the occupation this page's table reads. Filling customer orders inside a store, a grocery or a pharmacy falls under NOC 65102 instead, which covers shelf stockers, clerks and order fillers in stores: different code, different wages.
Are there part-time and weekend order picker jobs in Montreal?
Yes, mostly in food distribution and parcel sorting, which run seven days a week. The “What the job postings say” block above gives the share of Greater Montreal postings that mention evenings, nights and weekends for this occupation, taken from real Job Bank listings. This page describes the occupation; it does not advertise an open role.
What is voice picking?
It is picking guided by a headset: the system calls out the location and the quantity, the picker reads back a check code out loud, and both hands stay free. The other ways to guide a pick are the on-board terminal screen, the trigger scanner and pick-to-light displays. One warehouse often mixes two of them, zone by zone.
Is order picking physically hard?
It is repetitive before it is heavy. The CNESST names repeated movements and applied force among the main musculoskeletal risk factors, and recommends breaks proportional to the demand as well as automating the handling tasks that can be automated. In frozen storage it adds that cold reduces blood flow to the extremities and raises muscle tension and fatigue.
What is préparateur de commandes in English?
Order picker. That is the title Montreal's bilingual warehouses use most; you will also see order selector, warehouse picker and picker-packer when the same person packs the carton. Watch the double meaning: in English, order picker also names the stand-on truck that rises to the upper rack levels. The French version of this page carries the same content.
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