Provincial and federal governments are looking to women to help mitigate an impending labour shortage, while assisting women with opportunities for skilled, well-paying careers in “nontraditional” occupations.

In the last 50 years, Canada’s workforce has grown by 200 per cent, but times they are a changin’. With baby boomers settling into retirement and the national birth rate sitting relatively low, the workforce is expected to slow down to about 11 per cent over the next 50 years. This, along with construction demands that are anticipated to exceed the number of skilled tradespeople available, is expected to result in Canada needing 317,000 construction workers between now and 2017.

Wanda Wetterberg, chief operating officer for Edmonton’s Women Building Futures program says many industrial sectors are beginning to acknowledge that women represent 50 per cent of the available workforce, yet only occupy four percent of the construction and oil and gas sector jobs.

“We are very committed to opening that world up to women so they can establish careers in a different field,” says Wetterberg.

WBF offers a 17-week pre-trades journeywoman’s anchor program six times a year, which covers essential skills of seven different trades, as well as workplace culture conditioning. It also completed its first intake on its Heavy Equipment Operator course in June, an approved Integrated Training Program with the Province of Alberta in co-operation with Olds College.

Women are under-represented in the skilled trades in Ontario as well, making up three per cent of registered apprentices in the automotive, construction, and industrial trades in 2007 and 2008. The provincial government has, however, earmarked $3.3 million over two years to help 264 low income women across the province get training.

In April of this year, Conestoga College received over $784,000 of that money to fund its Women in Skilled Trades and Information Technology Training for Women programs, which will provide 61 women with training in carpentry, automotive service, network administration, web development, and other related areas. According to a news release from the province of Ontario, 80 per cent of women who have graduated from a WIST/ITTW program are employed or pursuing further training in their field.

Attitudes about women in construction have shifted dramatically over the past ten years, and will continue to shift as numbers rise and generations change hands, says Abigail Fulton, vice-president of BC Construction Association, which offers the Skilled Trades Employment Program (STEP) for Women.

The biggest problem women in trades are facing, says Fulton, is one of numbers. “You have to hit a certain percentage of women in the workforce before women become accepted and comfortable, and we just aren’t there yet. Once we reach about 15 per cent I think we will cease to be an under-utilized group.”

STEP for Women recently received funding from the B.C.’s Industry Training Authority (ITA) to expand its program to hire a provincial director, as well as outreach representatives in each of the Northern, Southern Interior, Vancouver Island, and Lower Mainland regions. These “trades employment specialists will network with employers, interview and assess participants, establish placement and mentorship, and provide retention support.

“The women we have placed have worked out really well,” says Fulton, “and a few of the employers would rather hire a women because they say having them around can change the whole attitude and productivity of a jobsite.”

Retention support and mentoring programs like those offered by STEP for Women and the Canadian Association for Women in Construction seem to be the ticket for success.

The largest hurdle for women in trades isn’t the work, says Fulton. “It’s feeling like you are the only one. Even having one other woman on the same job site makes a huge difference.” CWCJ