More Women
In these days of skills shortages, those industries (including IT) who are finding it the hardest, are those recruiting only from half the human race, says Patricia Hewitt.
Patricia Hewitt announced a new initiative today to get more women into professions where they are being excluded – and that includes IT.
According to figures some of the industries where there are a low percentage of women include:-
Manufacturing at 25%
Engineering at 23%
IT at 20% and
Construction at 1%
Of the non-manual professions, IT has the lowest percentage of women.
New Initiative
The new initiative will encourage more girls in school to take up some of the above professions and will encourage more women to seek to become entrepreneurs.
If women want to become, for example, plumbers then they will be given more help and encouragement to do so.
They will be given better career advice focusing on areas that currently exclude women and one of those will be in IT.
Exclusion Zone
According to Patricia Hewitt the lack of women in some areas of the workforce is one of the main reasons for skills shortages. She said:-
‘Employers are crying out for more skilled people. The areas where they are finding it hardest to fill vacancies is where there they are recruiting from only half of the human race’.
According to new figures just out women are still losing out to men in the pay stakes. Men receive, on average 19.5% more pay than women.
