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Canada eyes women workers to bolster skilled trades

Reuters . Ottawa
31 Jul 2021 00:00:00 | Update: 31 Jul 2021 05:11:21
Canada eyes women workers to bolster skilled trades
Canada’s policymakers looking at a largely untapped market for new construction women workers– Reuters Photo

A shortage of skilled workers is intensifying in Canada, potentially threatening the pace of the economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, and that has policymakers looking at a largely untapped market for new construction workers: Women.

But attracting and retaining women in the skilled trades has long proven difficult, with tradeswomen and advocates citing challenges balancing childcare and on-site work, the stubborn sexism still ingrained in some workplaces, and a lack of opportunities for women to get a foot in the door.

Vanessa Miller was a young single mom when she decided to scrap university for welding. She got her journeyperson ticket and became a rarity in Canada: a woman with her own welding rig, a truck kitted out with all the equipment needed to do big jobs.

"Every time you go to a different job and nobody knows who you are, you have to prove yourself," she said, speaking from her home in Regina, Saskatchewan. "It's still difficult to break into the industry, it's still very male dominated."

Canada, like other developed nations, is facing a shortage of skilled trade workers just as a pandemic stimulus-backed building boom gets underway. At the same, more women than men remain unemployed because of the pandemic, and about 54,000 women have left the labor force since February 2020.

The gap between women's labor force participation and men's costs the Canadian economy C$100 billion ($79.3 billion) each year, said Carrie Freestone, an economist at RBC.

"Obviously skilled trades are a good opportunity," Freestone said. In its latest budget, Canada's Liberal government pledged C$470 million ($373.2 million) to support the hiring of new apprentices for the most in-demand trades. Companies that hire women, Indigenous people and other minority groups get double the funding.

But women working in the trades and union leaders say it will take more than just money to get more women in the trades, they need work opportunities.

"We're doing the work to mentor tradeswomen, to build our supply of under-represented groups," said Lindsay Amundsen, director of workforce development at Canada's Building Trades Unions. "Now we need these things legislated in large infrastructure projects. We need to put these people to work."

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