Women seeking trades gain traction at LRATC

St. Boniface

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/12/2024 (625 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Gabi Wagner is a Grade 12 J.H. Bruns student who enjoyed training in a hockey academy and woodworking in junior high classes. She likes to work with her grandfather in his garage shop.

Dakota Collegiate student Kalesha Campbell is active in the school band program, and the soccer and basketball teams.

They both chose to enroll in the building trades program at the Louis Riel Arts and Technology Centre to change up their high school experience.

Kalesha needed “a change from too much sitting and staring at papers.”

Gabi jumped at the opportunity “to do hands-on work and connect to the professional world.”

Both are in their proper educational space, learning and achieving by doing, working through problems with their hands and minds.

And they’ve done it by stepping off the beaten path of the K-12 experience into a field dominated by men.

They are part of an emerging trend of more women seeking career paths in the trades.

Statistics Canada reveals that in 2022, about 8.7 per cent of “trades, transport and equipment operators and related occupations” were occupied by women, up from 5.9 per cent in 1987.

Carol Paul, executive director of the Manitoba Construction Sector Council, notes that women see the advantage “to earn and learn through their training, giving them an opportunity to buy and renovate their own homes and support their lifestyles without a large education debt.”

“Women have incredible opportunities to advance as estimators, safety officers, project managers, and entrepreneurs,” she said.

Promoting the trades to women makes good economic sense. With about 700,000 of the four million Canadians working in the trades set to retire by the end of the decade, according to Employment and Social Development Canada, the time is ripe for new entrants into the industry.

2024 Glenlawn Collegiate grad Madison Zaffino left high school feeling “bored and unmotivated” but has discovered “new energy “in the LRATC electrical trades program.

Jessica Salazar will graduate from J. H. Bruns in 2025 after she completes her second semester in the electrical trades at LRATC, grateful “to learn practical skills from highly specialized teachers.”

These enterprising young women are challenging outdated stereotypes and inspiring younger generations of women to pursue non-traditional career paths as they fill critical labour gaps and promote gender quality at worksites.

LRATC’s programs are full of aspiring carpenters, electricians, plumbers, and automotive technicians, 75 per cent of whom are “actively engaged in learning’” according to exit surveys.

It’s no longer just the boys filling up those trades and apprenticeship classrooms. To learn more about the 13 technical, apprenticeship, and applied programs at LRATC, check out the open houses on Feb. 25 and 26 or contact atc.office@lrsd.net