Say the words “carpenter” or “electrician” and you might picture a white van pulling into your driveway—a man gets out (maybe in a baseball cap), slides open the van door, and takes out a toolkit with at least 20 compartments. He comes in ready to renovate or rewire your house.
This may be an accurate image now, but for many reasons, it should not be the future. Women for these positions are a valuable untapped resource.
Slowly, more women are starting to get into the trades in general, and into construction and electrical work in particular. And this is good news for all of us, not least because of the shortage in skilled trade workers that is already starting to hit.
“The skilled labour workforce is constantly shrinking,” writes Merina Shriver in a ForConstructionPros.com article. “The industry is bracing for impact as it faces the silver wave… The skilled labour shortage started and has continued due to a few factors.” He talks about the problem of labour shortages and possible solutions including recruiting women.
Shriver spoke with Josh Nickell, Vice President of the equipment segment at the American Rental Association, who explained, “If we’re all fighting over a small group of people, then that’s still not going to solve our problem long-term. What we think about as an association and as an industry is how do we get to people younger?” An example of how his association is trying new things comes from the Girl Scouts. “We participate a lot with the Girl Scouts. It’s a group of people who like to work with their hands [and] to be outside, it’s a really good potential group for us long-term that is underrepresented in the construction industry and in the rental industry.” The partnership seems a smart approach to engaging girls in these hands-on lucrative trades at a young age.
Taking a closer look at the construction industry, there were about 300,000 job openings in construction in 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. This number has remained more or less the same for the past seven years. Currently, women make up only about nine percent of the overall construction workforce. This has several implications, especially for people who are not college-educated. That’s because construction is also an important employer of workers who do not have a B.A., employing about 10 million people who don’t have a degree. In fact, skilled labour industries like construction and electrical work are among the industries that pay the highest hourly rates to people who don’t have a degree; comparable roles in healthcare and education for women who do not have a degree actually pay about 19 percent less. Unfortunately, most of the women employed in the construction industry can be found not on the construction sites but in the office in support and administrative roles.
Perhaps one of the biggest challenges to attracting more women to the construction industry might be the construction site itself. Walking into an environment that is overwhelmingly dominated by men can be daunting to begin with. Add the fact that many sites do not include a women’s restroom, the equipment and harnesses are designed for men, and there is little to no accommodation for childcare, of which women by far have the larger share of the responsibility. All of these add up to make a difficult situation that is much more complicated for women. Industry stakeholders need to recognize and address these issues and make change.
In the electrical industry, the numbers are even bleaker. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that only about two percent of electricians are women, BBC News reports in an article that outlines the backdrop of some pretty sobering numbers for the industry. The U.S. faces a major shortage of electricians, with an estimated gap of 1 million workers. This figure comes from Rewiring America, a nonprofit dedicated to electrification. The organization highlights the growing need for skilled professionals to install solar panels, heat pumps, and electric vehicle charging stations—essential components of the nation’s goal to achieve 100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035. “There are 80,000 openings for electricians each year on average over the next decade just to replace workers who either retire or transition to different jobs,” said Sam Calisch, Rewiring America’s head of research.
And beyond the big numbers that we have just seen, there are impacts that are hitting much closer to home.
For a sense of how difficult things are becoming, take a look at California where demand for more solar panels and alternative sources for electricity continues to grow, but the available workers to provide these services can’t keep up. Installing home EV chargers for the rising numbers of consumers who are buying electric vehicles is just one example. With these types of services in high demand, getting an electrician out for an emergency call is fast becoming a long shot. Borin Reyes, who owns Boyes Electric out of Oakland, California, illustrates the state of the industry in a Grist article:
“Customers are literally looking for electricians every single day,” says Reyes. “We’re not taking emergency calls anymore because we don’t have the manpower.” And this is not limited to just his own business. “It is a problem finding people right now. Most of the electrical companies, you can ask around, all of them are busy.” And it’s not going to get better any time soon because companies like Reyes’ are not able to find experienced people who are looking for work—because they are already hired.
Another problem facing the electrical industry is that the feeder schools turning out the next generation of electricians are facing shortfalls on funding and a shortage of instructors who can teach the trade.
The bottom line of where we are right now for construction and electrical work is that there is far too much demand and not nearly enough skilled workers, yet many industries are leaving half the population out of the workforce. So, the solution seems straightforward, right? If more women entered and stayed in construction and electrical work, there would be enough workers to fill existing job openings. This is starting to happen in the utility and transportation industry, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. The construction and electrical work industries are lagging behind.
When it comes to finding ways to increase the number of women entering the construction and electrical industries, informing women and changing the impressions they receive of these industries at a young age are critical to changing the course of things. That starts with challenging the assumption that these industries are not for women. Of course, it’s all very well and good to say that, but prospective employees want concrete examples of how they will learn to work with modern tools and technology, develop transferable skills, and work on solving interesting problems and diverse projects. They need to understand that there is a lot of satisfaction in the work, and yes, the pay is very good. The best way to achieve all this is to hear from women themselves who are working in the industries.
As for getting them while they’re young, these industries as a whole need to find ways to make construction and electrical work a real option for girls as they go through school. That means being willing to invest in pathways that lead to apprenticeships as well as opportunities to experience and explore new technologies in these industries.
Initiatives are sparking. As ForConstructionPros.com points out, organizations like the National Association of Women in Construction are running leadership academies and scholarship programs to help remove barriers to women entering and progressing in the industry. In Maine, Governor Janet Mills signed an Executive Order to promote the recruitment, training, and retention of women in construction. The Los Angeles Metro launched the website Women Breaking Ground to give women information about joining apprenticeship readiness training. And the Arizona Builders Alliance offers a Women in Leadership Program to support women’s advancement in leadership roles.
Making change is not only critical for the future of these industries; it is critical for all of us as we need to make investments into our aging infrastructure as well as adapt to new demands that emerging technologies like AI will need. The time to wait and hope that women may start to enter these industries on their own is over. It is up to industry to make this a priority if construction and electrical companies want to continue to thrive.
