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Overcoming barriers: Women underrepresented in Ontario’s skilled trades

By Jay Menard

Skilled trades in Canada are largely dominated by males. While females have made some progress in the industry, there are still significant barriers — including attitudinal — that prevent women from embracing trades.

“The construction trades are dominated by men and as such there are tremendous challenges for women entering them,” explained Craig Brockwell, director of external affairs for Support Ontario Youth. “Women need to overcome perceptions that they aren’t as strong as the men or as capable as the men in the performance of their jobs. As well, they need to overcome sexism and misogyny that they face day to day.

“Nonetheless, more and more companies are actively seeking to hire under-represented groups to their jobs and as such, there are more and more opportunities for young women to gain employment in formally male dominated jobs.”

Statistics Canada states only five per cent of skilled trades workers in Canada are women. That number is small enough on its own, but when you factor in that this number includes industries like hairstyling and esthetics (where women make up 84 per cent of the workers), there is a significant under-representation of women in the skilled trades.

Lisa Rizzato, chief executive officer at Centre for Skills Development, said she is seeing progress being made based upon the composition of their training programs.

“We know that skilled trades has been, and continues to be, a male-dominated environment, but at Centre for Skills, we are seeing more and more women and other genders entering into our training programs with each passing year,” Rizzato said. “It hasn’t been an easy evolution to get the industries to seek and plan for balance, but the support and advocacy is there. Trade training programs targeted at recruiting women, newcomers, and Indigenous people have been around for some time, and ultimately the shift in societal norms acceptance and inclusiveness spills out across all areas of life, including the workplace and improving fair workplace practices around inclusion.”

Kelly Hoey, executive director at Halton Industry Education Council — ApprenticeSearch. com, said her organization runs a peer mentoring program to help connect women in the trades. They’ve also conducted an “Exploring Apprenticeship Training and Support Needs for Under-represented Ontario Job Seekers” research project, which aims to understand the barriers under-represented and equity-seeking groups face in the skilled trades

“When asked if they had experienced any barriers at the onset of their skilled trades pathway, women in our focus group felt that they were never told about the opportunities in the skilled trades during school, and were steered towards other career pathways,” Hoey explained. “Common themes that appeared in the research on barriers to participation include a lack of networks and connections to find employment in the trades, a lack of flexibility with employers, and the unaffordability of the necessary startup and maintenance costs when pursuing a skilled trade pathway.

“When asked what support they wished they had access to, to help alleviate some of these barriers, respondents highlighted financial, emotional, and infrastructure-related suggestions. Having access to mentorship was one of the most requested supports. Those who did have access to mentorship on their skilled trade journey reported excellent experiences, and felt that they would not have been able to succeed without their mentor.”