Companies recruit more women into skilled trades to address labor shortages

Women made up about 4.4% of construction and installation-and-repair jobs as of last year, up from 2.9% a decade earlier

Companies across the United States are hiring more women into construction and related skilled trades as they seek to address worker shortages. The Wall Street Journal reported Nov. 2 that federal data showed women at about 4.4% of workers in construction and installation and repair as of last year, compared with 2.9% a decade earlier. The federal category includes jobs such as plumbers, carpenters and auto technicians, and the federal data show mostly steady gains over that period.

Women have broadly outperformed men in the labor market in recent years, according to the report. That performance partly reflects booming growth in healthcare and social assistance, fields that traditionally employ more women, while women also are making inroads in traditionally male-dominated jobs.

Recruitment incentives and female workforce participation

More women are breaking into the trades, drawn by well-paying jobs that are in high demand. To keep them coming, many companies are courting women through new benefits and perks, including paid maternity leave and more flexibility.

Sammy Cossairt, 36, is a tower-crane operator in Nashville, Tenn. She works 12-hour shifts, lifting and moving rebar and buckets of concrete from a perch often hundreds of feet in the air, and makes $120,000 a year. Cossairt has tried call-center work, waiting tables and hoisting concrete, and she prefers hoisting concrete. The trade was not what she envisioned when she received a liberal arts associate degree more than a decade ago, but after nearly a decade on the job, she feels at home in her crane. Cossairt said, “I’m out in the sun, making my mark on the world.” She also said, “I think more women would love to get in and make men’s money doing this work, if they only knew.”

Universal Technical Institute’s student body across 17 U.S. campuses is now 8% female, quadruple the share five years ago. The figure reaches 19% in collision repair and auto refinishing. At the school’s campus in Exton, Pa., career services director Katie Yurick said women are enrolling partly because the industry has grown more tech-infused. Automotive technicians can hook up cars to computers for diagnosis, and plenty of in-demand jobs, such as welding and electrical work, can trade as much on brains and attention to detail as brawn, Yurick said. “These jobs aren’t even dirty jobs anymore,” she said. She also has heard from employers trying to hire women because they believe women have high maturity levels and are detail-oriented.

Mortenson began offering 12 weeks of paid leave for birth mothers in its skilled workforce in 2024. More than 10% of the company’s skilled workforce is now female, up from 7% a decade ago. Executive vice president Maja Ericksen said, “Our industry needs this workforce.” She also said, “There aren’t too many careers you feel are AI-proof, and being in the skilled trades is one that isn’t going away.”

Retention benefits and job design

Companies are also trying to retain female workers by providing properly sized safety gear and cleaner facilities, and by redesigning work around the schedules of employees with caregiving duties.

Kym Gardner, 39, is a project engineer in Charlotte, N.C., at Turner Construction. As a child, she never thought about working in the field; her mother was a teacher and her father a computer analyst. “No one really talked about it, it wasn’t considered to be a career,” she said. “The expectation was to go to college.” But in high school, she grew interested in architecture, found a construction mentorship program and quickly fell in love with seeing buildings rise from the ground up. Now the mother of three children, including a 5-month-old, she starts her days on site and works remotely in the afternoons — flexibility she said gives her peace of mind and ensures she doesn’t have to sacrifice her caregiving duties.

Turner Construction president Abrar Sheriff said the company is growing fast and needs all the workers it can get. The company hit $29 billion in revenue last year and expects around $35 billion this year, fueled in part by data-center work. Its recruiting pitch includes greater scheduling flexibility, heated and cooled bathrooms with running water on worksites, and regularly cleaned breakrooms. “We need more people to come into our industry,” Sheriff said.

Skanska has taken steps to ensure female employees receive correctly sized gloves, helmets and work boots rather than make do with male-sized equipment. Deila Ray, who spent a decade as a pipe welder and now teaches the trade in high school, said she had to shrink her own gloves with fire when she started in the industry.

Inclusion and responses to harassment on jobsites

Companies are also trying to create a more welcoming work environment on male-dominated jobsites, addressing off-color jokes and catcalls and responding to workplace harassment.

Skanska began requiring inclusion for all team leaders this year, encouraging greater awareness of workers’ different needs, said Ayesha Adams, the company’s inaugural director of culture and engagement, who joined in 2023. “You can get people all day, but how do you keep them here?” Adams said.

At Turner, senior leaders join a call within four hours after an incident is reported. In one recent case in Texas, an entire project crew of around a dozen men from a subcontractor was replaced after that company could not identify who had written derogatory graffiti about female employees, Sheriff said.

Rebecca Heustess, 42, is a tile foreman in Henry, S.D., making $65,000 a year. She said it doesn’t take aggressive comments to make a jobsite feel hostile. Even after 20 years in the trades, she said she regularly encounters men who patronize her or ignore her instructions. Still, she said she has thick skin and that the jobsite culture has slowly improved, and she also loves the work. “When I leave a job, it’s this beautiful shiny sparkly project that I know will be there for years to come,” Heustess said. She also said, “It’s super fulfilling.”

State requirements for construction sites

States are also making work in the trades more accommodating for women. Both Washington and Illinois have in the last few years passed laws requiring nursing rooms for mothers on construction sites, refrigerators to store breast milk, flexible break schedules and access to water for cleaning.