Skilled trade workers are in big demand and short supply and it just might be a career pathway you should consider. WorkingNation and Scripps News have partnered on a new series, Fire Up Your Career, to explore the types of jobs available, what employers are doing to attract talent, and how you can get the skills needed for these good-paying jobs popping up all across the country.
Many skilled trade jobs are high-paying, unionized jobs, yet less than 5% of skilled trade workers are women. While their numbers are growing, they’re not growing fast enough. That’s why organizations around the country are actively recruiting and training women to fill in-demand jobs.
Overall employment in construction and extraction jobs, for example, is expected to grow faster than average for all occupations through the 10-year period ending in 2033, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. About 663,500 openings are projected each year. Employers say they can’t find enough people to fill those roles.
“If more women entered and stayed in construction, there could be enough workers to fill existing job openings,” according to U.S. Department of Commerce.
Why aren’t there more women in the field?
“While construction jobs typically have low educational barriers to entry, becoming a skilled trades worker requires both technical training and access to a network, as construction often recruits by word-of-mouth,” explains DOC.
The department also says that the culture on a job site, gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and limited access to wraparound services such as child care also play a role in recruitment and retention.
With increased federal investments and the resulting increase in demand for workers, now could be a good time for employers to focus on women as a solution to the skilled trade labor shortage.
Historic Infrastructure Investment
Melissa Wells, special assistant to the president at North America’s Building Trade Unions (NABTU) says with the historic funds supporting infrastructure, “There’s such a huge focus also on leveraging those investments to get what we call the ‘opportunity generation’ into the building trade unions or working on those projects.
“There’s a big focus around getting more women – more workers of color, historically underrepresented folks, veterans – into those career pathways and being able to benefit from this historic investment. I think not only for themselves, but for their communities.”
Wells adds, “We are utilizing apprenticeship readiness programs like MC3 – utilizing those programs to actually connect and create a pipeline for people to enter into this high-wage, high-growth career pathway.”
She acknowledges that there is a lot of room for growth when comes to attracting women and workers of color to the trades.
“But we know the model works. I would say about 80% of all of our apprenticeship readiness graduates [across approximately 200 programs] are workers of color. And just about 20% of all grads are women.”
Later this month, NABTU is convening a Tradeswomen Build Nations gathering in New Orleans.
“It’s an event that’s focused on supporting tradeswomen, lifting up tradeswomen in terms of them telling their stories about what it’s like to be in the trades, lifting up what the challenges are – be it as women or women in the trades – talking about leadership, and just talking about what are some more best practices and policies that we can put in place to help women succeed in the trades,” explains Wells.
Trade-specific and Women-focused Training Programs
Around the country, organizations are working to close that gender gap and put more women on the pathway to these lucrative careers.
Lark Jackson is the associate director of the National Center for the Chicago Women in Trades (CWIT).
The National Center was formed in 2015 to replicate and expand the best practices that CWIT has been able to develop over its own 40-plus-year history.
“CWIT is highly-skilled at creating women-focused, quality pre-apprenticeship programming for women to enter the unionized building construction trades in Chicago,” says Jackson.
“We also have a welding program, which often gets women into careers in manufacturing. We have taken an innovative approach and developed trade-specific, women-focused pre-apprenticeship programs in collaboration with carpenters, as well as the painters, in Chicago. Again, to strengthen those pipelines to get women into construction Registered Apprenticeship programs.”
As part of the effort to recognize barriers women have faced in the skilled trades, Jackson says, the organization relies on those best practices used by CWIT on how to do outreach, recruitment, training, and retention of women in the skilled trades.
“That could be us developing a briefing paper that explores the experiences of women in the trades and provides recommendations to industry stakeholders on how to best support them. That could be us delivering training on harassment prevention, mentorship, and bystander intervention training. There’s a variety of ways that we deliver technical assistance.”
Jackson also stresses that young girls are not being offered skilled trades career exploration. That exposure, she says, could put them on a career pathway.
“I think there’s this huge misconception that women aren’t interested in these types of jobs and the male-dominated, blue-collar industries, but they are. They literally are just not hearing about them – whether they’re not hearing about them in grammar school, in high school, or even as adult-age women.”
She continues, “Women have the transferrable skills to be highly successful in these career pathways. We’re creating an environment where women can identify their unique skillsets.”
Jackson also points out some progress, “I’m definitely seeing more of a thirst from those industry stakeholders and intentionality about diversifying their talent pool. I think with the historic infrastructure investments that we’ve seen, that thirst has intensified.”
Calls to Action
The National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER) recently released research based on insights from tradeswomen “to better understand the benefits women bring to individual construction projects and the industry as a whole.”
In Her Own Words: A Call to Action from the Field calls on owners and contractors to:
- Treat women equally
- Accommodate mothers
- Eliminate discrimination and sexual harassment
- Ensure consistent hiring practices
- Offer training opportunities
- Increase the number of women in field leadership positions
- Improve jobsite experience
The research notes, “Statistics show that for every four people leaving the construction industry, only one enters.”
‘Take that road less walked on’
Alexis Suarez del Real used to work at an urgent care handling front-end registration and also handling phlebotomy orders. These days, she is an apprentice with Roofers Local 11, working at Crowther Roofing & Sheet Metal, Inc. in Romeoville, Illinois.
So how did Suarez del Real make the switch?
She says, “I think I wanted something more physically challenging. When I was in high school, I was a three-sport athlete. So, I always like that challenge and just mentally, physically pushing myself to do a little bit more.”
She adds, “I was looking for something with more pay. I think the union just called my name.”
Suarez del Real discovered her career trajectory through CWIT. ‘Basically, they teach us fundamentals on tools, material handling. We go over some math that might’ve been forgotten from fifth grade – fractions, decimals, all that. Reading a tape measure.
“They took us to different locals and when it came to a training center for roofers, I just really liked this one woman. Her name was Annie. She really liked it. And she was an older lady. She was already 50 and she had started maybe like 10 years ago.”
Suarez del Real landed her current position with Crowther last spring and will continue working until classes resume next month at Roofers Local 11’s training center.
Until then, she is very proactive on the job.
“Right now, the job site, it’s about 45 minutes away. I like to get there at least 35-40 minutes early just in case. I start getting any supplies together that they might need. I’m really new still, so I’m always asking what they need or what section of the roof we’re going to be working on. And then most of the time they split off into different groups, so I’ll be bringing the material that they need, picking up after them any garbage, and asking what I can help out with.”
Suarez del Real explains she is sponsored by Crowther so after she completes five years of training, she is committed to the company for an additional five years.
She says some were surprised by her career shift, “A lot of people said that it was kind of crazy and it was almost inspiring. I was almost inspiring myself to just do it, take that road less walked on.”
She adds, “The fact that we get that little break, it is seasonal. I’m pretty good at saving money. That way when winter comes, maybe I can travel. I just felt like this was a good opportunity and I wanted to take it.”
Fire Up Your Career: The Skilled Trades
All this week, WorkingNation and our partner Scripps News will continue to explore the opportunities in the skilled trades, what’s driving the demand for workers, and programs that are helping to fill the worker shortfall.
This morning, I joined the Morning Rush program to talk about women in the skilled trades.
Tune into Scripps News each morning at 9:45 am ET to hear from our WorkingNation team as part of our Fire Up Your Career special coverage.
You can also find more of our ongoing WorkingNation coverage on the skilled trades here on our website.
