According to a new report, women in the skilled trades earn about half what men do.
The report from the Labour Market Information Council looks specifically at those who received their certifications over a decade ago and looks at how much their salary has increased through to 2017— and according to the numbers, women’s annual earnings across all 56 “Red Seal” trades was about half of men.
The stats show it is partly a function of the low-paying trades where women chose such fields as cooking, baking, and hairstyling but overall, women in the trades made 47 per cent, or $31,400, less than men did in the first year following certification, and sadly, the percentage hasn’t changed after eight years.
“When you look at that alongside the fact that, right now, there is evidence emerging around labour shortages in the skilled trades, which was there before, it begs the question of whether or not now is the time to promote more people, in particular women, to enter some of these other trades where the earnings are higher?” The Labour Market Information Council’s executive director, Steven Tobin said.
About one-fifth of Canadians work in the skilled trades, and about three-quarters of all certified workers qualify as red-seal tradespeople. And according to the report, 700,000 skilled-trades workers are expected to retire over the next seven years making way for a whole lot of new jobs.