A Renewed Focus on Women in the Trades

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit many were left without jobs and a steady income, though Lupe Trejo a Latina mother of six living just outside of Washington D.C. who had recently started an apprenticeship as a steamfitter in 2017 saw her work and wage increase. Studies show that very few women and even fewer women of color pursue the construction industry like Trejo as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that less than 11% of employees in the construction industry are female while around 89% of construction employees are white.

Domestic spending bills being considered by Congress represent a historic opportunity to change those numbers with new dollars for training, advocates say. The $1 trillion infrastructure bill recently passed by Congress is expected to create hundreds of thousands of jobs, if not millions, repairing roads, ports, and bridges; electrifying the power grid; replacing aged pipes, and expanding high-speed internet. The framework for President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion domestic spending bill passed by the House includes nearly $30 billion in workforce training and other investments that tradeswomen and workforce experts say could help recruit, train, and retain women and people of color, who’ve been marginalized by sexism and racism within the construction industry"

Caroline Preston, Crosscut

As the industry starts to deal with the influx of retirements dubbed the “silver tsunami” many current construction jobs have to potential to be unfilled. Numbers reaching around 2.7 million retiring workers have companies desperately searching for ways to increase the number of skilled workers accessible to them as well as being able to upskill that workforce for increased productivity. Now advocates are hoping that the domestic spending bill before Congress will help promote progress as it allocates tens of billions for workforce development including trades, pre-apprenticeship, and apprenticeship programs while also including improvements to affordable childcare.

Read full article here: https://crosscut.com/news/2021/11/infrastructure-legislation-could-open-doors-women-building-trades