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Women comprise best about 14% of registered apprentices, according to the Department of Labor, though they account for half of of the physique of workers.
The department is taking steps to increase that number. Remaining week it introduced $5 million in grants to assist up to 14 community-essentially based organizations to entice and increase women in registered apprenticeship programs, largely in construction, manufacturing and cybersecurity.
In past grant cycles, the Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations grants believe been spherical $250,000 to $1 million, funding about 5 grants a three hundred and sixty five days, mentioned Wendy Chun-Hoon, director of the Labor Department’s Women’s Bureau.
Here, Chun-Hoon talks with Building Dive about the grants, the negate of construction labor and the method underrepresented groups can assist alleviate the industry’s labor woes.
The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.
CONSTRUCTION DIVE: Are you able to inform me a little bit about this grant program?
Wendy Chun-Hoon: We introduced the fiscal three hundred and sixty five days 2023 funding opportunity remaining Friday in Recent York City, which changed into once stunning exciting because we did it at a latest WANTO grantee. Their identify is Nontraditional Employment for Women, and they were graduating a class of pre-apprentices.
The authorizing legislation for WANTO in reality goes assist some 30 years, and we believe had grantmaking authority right here at the Women’s Bureau for the past six years or so. The complete program is designed as a technical support grant to community-essentially based organizations admire NEW, which is providing technical support to employers, to unions and then increasingly to public sector project owners on how to recruit, how to train, how to retain — which in most cases involves quite rather a lot of increase in mentoring women in the many occupations that they’re level-headed vastly underrepresented in.
What are the greatest challenges for getting women into the trades?
Wendy Chun-Hoon
Permission granted by Department of Labor
One in every of the graduates from Friday, her identify’s Alicia, mentioned she had always beloved doing electrical rewiring. She got in distress with her dad when she changed into once a little one for rewiring their TV when it stopped working. I think right here’s a genuinely general story. She got glum from pursuing that path to the electrical trades.
So she grows up in Jamaica, comes over to the States and finds the best alternate choices birth to her were in home care. And as she is fixing the children’ toys, it’s the mother who notices and says, “Hi there, you watch admire you may be always fixing these things, believe you ever ever heard of this program NEW?” And lo and behold, eight weeks later she’s thru her preapprenticeship program.
I think the very general story is, you’ve got to examine it to be it, and there are no longer sufficient women in these jobs. So, a mammoth segment of the first step is to be certain that women know that these jobs are on hand to them, and right here’s the pathway to fetch into them.
We now believe heard other stories about identical barriers to entry. One general barrier is childcare. Tons of these women believe talked about how laborious it is to form that pivot to a career while they believe young children to be pleased. So, I may per chance level-headed particularly point out that up to 25% of the WANTO grant to the community-essentially based organization is funding or investing in supportive services and products. Those supportive services and products can address all the barriers to entry: tools and equipment, remaining mile transportation, fetch sincere of entry to to training programs and fetch sincere of entry to to childcare.
How does WANTO measure the success of a grant program admire this?
I’ll begin by acknowledging that WANTO is miniature. It’s a miniature footprint. Maybe you may inform my excitement thru this dialog about how great vitality I think it has and the method great bigger I think it may per chance level-headed be. But it’s a stunning miniature footprint.
The amount that Congress licensed in the omnibus remaining three hundred and sixty five days is best $5 million. When we’re thinking about the grant bucks during the federal authorities, I believe that we’re certainly one of the more effective programs. We believe reached 10,000 women over the past six grant cycles to be segment of or join pre-apprenticeship programs, apprenticeship programs, fetch security training, fetch alternate classes, career counseling, et cetera. But we’ve reached — assist to my earlier about “Come during it to be it” — we’ve reached three instances that — something admire 30,000 women.
For instance, the fresh grantee that we were with on Friday mentioned they save up a metro poster and instantly got 500 of us calling to join their classes. Quite easy things admire which believe an affect, so the attain is fundamental.
I think 97% of the women who near thru WANTO-funded interventions are gaining that certificates or that industry license or some kind of credential. That’s stunning distinguished, including for a miniature grant program admire this, that’s designed to be technical support, no longer even order service.
If I’m a stakeholder in construction, what may per chance level-headed I take a ways from WANTO’s grant program?
These jobs are growing. We don’t at the 2nd believe the physique of workers to meet the interrogate. Engaging a talented, various, inclusive physique of workers — that can be the method forward for the trades. The more that we are able to fetch these classes, these strategies which believe confirmed to work and the quicker we are able to replicate them, the more we are able to meet that physique of workers interrogate that every contractor is facing.
Here’s genuinely the 2nd, valid? Because the money is starting to hit the avenue in states, the projects are starting to fetch explain on, the partnerships starting to align. So, for the contractors, for the unions, for the public sector partners who will be absorbing these bucks, to genuinely search those partners identical to the WANTO grantees to assist them fleet embed those classes and those effective practices, the quicker we are going to fetch there in terms of meeting the physique of workers interrogate.