NAIT's Build Her Up: Skilled Trades Conference on March 6 is part of the polytechnic's work to address labour shortages and the tiny fraction that women make up in the skilled trades workforce.
"This is important because not a lot of women were given this opportunity — I don't even think this idea was put in their heads," Nicole Mahoney, the associate dean of the school of manufacturing and automation at NAIT, told Taproot. "There are many skilled trade jobs out there that can be done by anyone, and women should do them because they pay great and they give them a lot of financial security, independence, and freedom. The ability to work with your hands, in my opinion, is amazing."
Mahoney cited NAIT-sourced statistics that suggest Canadian women make up just 5% of workers in the most in-demand skilled trades. The college also shared data from the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum that predicts Alberta needs 26,000 new journeypersons and 51,000 new apprentices in the top 15 Red Seal trades by 2026 to meet industry demand (the Red Seal Program sets national standards for skilled trades).
A spokesperson for Women Building Futures, a non-profit from Edmonton that trains and supports women and gender-diverse people in trades, told Taproot that "Canada is expected to need 225,000 additional journeypersons over the next five years" and that "nearly 112,000 certified workers (are) expected to retire over the same period."
Those numbers are waking people up to the need for more women in trades, Mahoney said. "I think there's more advertising towards women because the need is so high, and we have to look at different routes, different groups of people than what we've traditionally looked at."
Build Her Up is a cap-off for the Women Building and Leading Canada's Future program at NAIT. The program was funded with $2.6 million by the Canadian Apprenticeship Strategy: Women in Skilled Trades Initiative and $36,000 from the Government of Alberta. It works to add more women to the Red Seal skilled trades before 2027 by providing financial support, hosting networking and conference events, and providing equity, diversity, and inclusion training for NAIT staff and trades employers. Funding for the program runs out in March.
Mahoney, who is the event chair and the co-chair of NAIT's Women in Skilled Trades committee, led a team that took feedback to build the Build Her Up event. "We sat down and we met with a group of industry women," she said. "We asked them: 'What would you like to see? What support do you wish that you would have had? What information would you like to have known? From there, we put a call out for presenters. We curated a list of sessions that help grab the women looking to get into the trades, the women apprentices currently in the trade, the women journeypeople in the trades, and industry."
The event is open to workers, aspiring workers, employers, and industry leaders. It includes sessions on soft skills, neurodivergence, diversity in the trades, and more. There are also panel discussions about why diversity, and allyship, are important in the trades. Plus, there are exhibitors and networking opportunities, including a ticketed reception at Ernest's Dining Room.
Morgan Bosch, an all-terrain crane operator, will speak during a session on building sisterhood. NAIT profiled Bosch and her social media efforts to bring together women in trades. She will share her experiences on the job, of amassing 41,000 followers for trades content on TikTok, and of building the YEG - Blue Collar Women Meet Up group on Facebook, which has around 1,300 members who swap stories and attend gatherings.
"Every single time we leave a meetup," Bosch said in a NAIT article, "my heart is so full."
This Women in Skilled Trades networking event held by NAIT is just one of the ways the school tries to grow the number of women in the trades workforce. Next up is the free Build Her Up conference on March 6. (Supplied)
Mahoney will also bring lived experience as a trades worker to Build Her Up. She worked for more than 10 years as a journeyperson ironworker before joining NAIT in 2014. Mahoney saw firsthand the dearth of women in the trades during her tenure, and shared some experiences in a NAIT article about sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual violence in the trades in 2018. Now, she said, the workplace culture of the trades is gradually changing.
"Things are getting better," she said. "It's not a light switch. You can't turn it on and off. It is like a dimmer switch and it is improving constantly."
Mahoney said ways to improve workplace culture include keeping policies for employees up to date, training employees on what is and isn't acceptable workplace behaviour, offering mentorship, and cultivating an environment where employees feel safe to speak up.
Adding more grants for students completing apprenticeships could also encourage more women to join the trades, Mahoney said. She cited the 2023 elimination of the federal Apprenticeship Incentive Grant for Women as a step in the wrong direction. A positive change from policymakers, she said, is a 2022 update to a provincial act governing apprenticeships that allows students to self-sponsor for apprenticeships rather than rely on an employer to do so.
"I have a passion for apprenticeship, and a lot of (students) don't know where to start and don't know what trade to pick," Mahoney said. "When I talk to people, they want to be the big five: Welder, automotive, plumber, electrician, carpenter … but there are things like refrigeration, air conditioning, mechanic, glazers, instrumentation technologies, machinist, millwrights, and so many other options."
NAIT's outreach to women even includes high schoolers. The Jill of All Trades program hosts girls in Grade 10 to Grade 12 to learn about career opportunities and participate in hands-on workshops where they build things.
Looking ahead, Mahoney said she plans to make Build Her Up an annual event. She also has a goal for the percentage of women in the trades. "Ideally, before I retire, I'd like to see women at 10%" she said.