BREAKING DOWN
BARRIERS Meet the women building the East Coast BY JANET WHITMAN
W
hen it comes to careers with a hammer, voltmeter, and other tools of the construction industry, women are woefully underrepresented. But their success and mentorship is key as Atlantic Canada and the rest of the country face a looming labour shortage, with tens of thousands of Baby Boomers in the skilled trades ready to retire. Programs have been popping up around the region to entice more women, a largely untapped market. They represent only around 4% of the skilled trades, a level that’s been largely unchanged over the past 25 years. Newfoundland and Labrador showed how incentives can work as the province geared up for a building boom. Wage subsidies, diversity quotas and the creation of provincially backed Office to Advance Women Apprentices 12 years ago boosted the percentage of women
working in the skilled trades to 14% from 3%. The group has since expanded with outposts in each of the Atlantic provinces and beyond. Beyond filling a labour gap, women gain the opportunity to work in what are typically solid, steady jobs with good wages and benefits. Karen Walsh, executive director of the Newfoundland branch of the Office to Advance Women, says her group provides a support system not only to help women find careers in the skilled trades, but stay in them. “That’s the missing link,” she says. “Some contractors have never had a female onsite and have 30, 40, 50 guys. We help to ensure the contractor is going to have a comfort level, washrooms, all of these things.” We caught up with some of the busiest builders on the East Coast who really know what it means to climb the ladder to success in the construction business.
Fourth-year millwright apprentices Della Ryan, Casandra Whalen and Amanda Reese are getting the support from programming offered by the Office to Advance Women Apprentices. With offices in all four Atlantic provinces, the organizations mission is to identify the barriers and track and measure the success of skilled construction tradeswomen in the region.
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FALL 2021
