WOMEN need to enter the building trade in their thousands every year to solve a growing skills crisis in the UK's construction industry, London's Green Party MEP Jean Lambert told a conference to mark the publication of a new book entitled 'Women in Construction' today.
"The industry itself reckons 83,000 new employees will be needed annually until at least 2007 just for capacity to stand still," said Mrs Lambert.
"The reality
is far more builders will be required, with very specialist skills, to meet the
needs of the 'green' construction sector. New building regulations and awareness
on energy efficiency, for example, mean we'll need a whole new generation of construction
workers - with a 21st Century
skills portfolio.
"This won't happen by itself: the EU needs a strategy for training and employment in construction. We are told we are building a New Europe - I want women to be fully involved in both the physical and political dimensions."
Mrs Lambert's comments came at an ESRC-sponsored conference on women in construction held today at the University of Westminster to mark the publication of 'Women in Construction'.
Currently, women make up just 9 per cent of the building trade's workforce in the UK. As Mrs Lambert observes in her introduction to the book, a number of factors are responsible for the lack of female builders: attitudes in society at large, educational expectations, resistance in the trade itself and working practices on construction sites.
Ambitious targets for sustainable building to reduce our energy
needs and combat climate change offer an enormous opportunity to transform the
role of women in the building trade, the conference heard.
"Women could spearhead this change if we adopt a new philosophical approach to construction aimed at meeting two of the EU's major goals - sustainable development and gender equality," added Mrs Lambert.
Other speakers at the conference included
Jill Wells of the International Labor Organisation in Geneva, Christine Wall of
the University of Cambridge, Linda Clark, Elisabeth Michielsens and Barbara Susman
of the University of Westminster and US electrician and author or 'We'll call
you
if we need you' Susan Eisenberg.
ENDS
For more information please contact Ben Duncan on 020 7407 6280, 07973 823358 or at press@greenmeps.org.uk