Thanks for inviting my colleagues and me here today.
My name is Martin Green. I'm the director general of the workplace partnerships directorate within the skills and employment branch of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. My directorate is responsible for advancing workplace partnerships with industry, labour, provinces and territories, and key stakeholders to ensure that Canadians have the skills and knowledge required to participate and succeed in the workplace.
I am pleased to speak today to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women to explain my department's role in supporting women enter non-traditional occupations and apprenticeship programs.
Unquestionably the most significant labour market change over the last few decades has been the rising educational attainment and increased labour market participation by women. Indeed, as of August of this year, women represented 50.3% of Canada's paid workforce.
I had planned to go through some background context, but I think my friends from Statistics Canada are going to do that, so I am going to start with the participation of women in apprenticeship programs.
According to the registered apprenticeship information system, women's representation in apprenticeship has been increasing over the last 10 years. By the end of 2007 there were 32,000 women registered as apprentices in Canada, an increase of 187% over the last 10 years. By the end of 2007, women represented 10.7% of all registered apprentices in Canada. The number of women registering in trades, which have always been male dominated, is increasing--for example, the number of women registered in building construction trades has increased from 1,560 to 5,315 between 1998 and 2007. This represents a significant increase of 241% during that time period.
Another sector that has shown a positive trend is motor vehicle and heavy equipment repair, where the number of women registered increased from 545 to 1,380, for a 170% increase during the same period. Despite these increases, we fully recognize that women are still underrepresented in the skilled trades.
Results from the 2007 national apprenticeship survey, a survey of over 30,000 apprentices across Canada, shows that 62% of females entered apprenticeship because they were interested in the trade, compared to only 50% of males. Only 7% of females found the apprenticeship technical training difficult, as compared to 12% of males. Only 10% of females found the on-the-job work as an apprentice difficult, compared to 15% of males.
While the global economic situation deteriorated further and faster than anticipated, the prognosis for the economy is improving. Past recessions have affected men and women quite differently. This downturn is no exception. Job losses have fallen more heavily on men than women. While women represent 47% of total employment, they account for only 21% of the job losses from October 2008 to August 2009. This is consistent with the current experience of the United States and the European Union.
Overall there is evidence that while women are increasing their educational attainment and their presence in the labour market, there are still gaps to be addressed. The federal government, in partnerships with provinces, territories, and other stakeholders, continues to work to remove barriers for women who want to participate in the labour market and ensure they are treated equitably.
The Government of Canada has a major role to play in addressing national skills and employment issues. This being said, the short answer to the question of the federal government's role relating to encouraging women to enter non-traditional occupations is that it's a shared responsibility. We work closely with provincial and territorial governments, employers, labour, and other stakeholders to design and implement initiatives that will assist in reducing barriers to employment and improving choices and opportunities for all Canadians.
One way in which we do this is through transfers to provinces and territories, which are best placed to design and deliver labour market programming specific to the needs of their populations. Labour market development agreements provide funding to PTs for skills development and training programs for EI-eligible clients.
Labour market agreements fund provincial and territorial labour market programs and services that focus on skills development for unemployed individuals who are not eligible for employment insurance. This includes underrepresented groups such as women, aboriginal people, and new immigrants. There are 250,000 to 300,000 women who are supported through LMDA agreements each year. The Ontario labour market agreement tracks the number of women served, while the Nova Scotia labour market agreement will target service at unemployed and low-skilled employed Nova Scotians who are not EI-eligible, including women.
To assist Canadians in the downturn, Canada's economic action plan announced a time limited increase of over $1 billion over two years for labour market development agreements and $500 million over two years for the creation of the strategic training and transition fund. The strategic training and transition fund is designed to be flexible to meet the diverse circumstances across regions, and it can be used for clients whether or not they are eligible for EI.
These agreements provide PTs with the flexibility to meet the skills development and training needs of their populations, obviously including women. In addition to these transfers to provinces and territories, we, as a department, offer a variety of programs, working closely with provincial and territorial governments, employers, and other stakeholders to encourage labour market attachment of Canadian men and women.
The department also contributes in a significant way to the Government of Canada's objective of advancing economic equality for women. Trades and apprenticeship, the sector council program, and the aboriginal skills and employment partnership program are some examples of such programming.
Apprenticeship is largely a provincial responsibility; however, the Government of Canada plays a key role in developing a highly skilled and mobile skilled trades workforce, encouraging access for women to the skilled trades, including non-traditional trades. The Government of Canada provides the national secretariat to the red seal program, which facilitates interprovincial mobility of men and women working as skilled tradespeople by harmonizing requirements and certification in 50 different trades. The red seal trades represent almost 89% of registered apprenticeships in this country.
The Canadian Council of Directors of Apprenticeship, of which HRSDC is a member, is responsible for administering the red seal program.
To address the financial barriers of apprentices, the Government of Canada launched the apprenticeship incentive grant in January 2007. It provides a $1,000 taxable cash grant to eligible apprentices upon completion of the first or second year of the apprenticeship program in one of the designated red seal trades. Since implementation, over 115,000 of these grants have been issued.
As part of Canada's economic action plan, and building on the incentive grant, the apprenticeship completion grant provides a $2,000 taxable cash grant available to apprentices who complete their apprenticeship program and receive their journeyperson certification in a designated red seal trade. The completion grant was launched in July 2009, with eligibility retroactive to January 1 of this year. Since implementation, nearly 5,000 of these grants have been issued.
As a combined result of the completion grant and the existing apprenticeship incentive grant, registered apprentices who completed their apprenticeship training and became certified in a designated red seal trade could be eligible to receive a total of $4,000.
The tradesperson's tools deduction provides employed tradespersons with an annual deduction up to $500 for the acquisition and cost of new tools required for employment in excess of $1,000.
Through the sector council program, the Government of Canada is working with the private sector to enhance workers' skills by increasing employer investment in skills development and promoting workplace learning and training. Sector councils exist in 33 key sectors of the Canadian economy, such as automotive, aviation, biotechnology, child care, construction, environment, mining, and steel. Several national sector councils have identified and started implementing strategies designed to encourage women to enter non-traditional occupations. Let me share a few highlights from some of these sector councils.
The Construction Sector Council has a strong interest in increasing women's participation in non-traditional occupations. The council will be hosting a one-day symposium in March 2010 to share the findings with industry and other key stakeholders of its 2008 study on women in construction and to discuss systemic issues related to the low rate of women's participation in the construction industry. The end goal is to develop an industry-led strategy to attract, recruit, and retain women in construction.
This study clearly shows this industry's commitment to expand its domestic labour pool by improving access to industry careers. The symposium and results of the 2008 study will inform the sector's programming with a view to addressing these issues.
The Information and Communications Technology Council believes in the importance of attracting more women and better integrating women in the Canadian ICT industry. Last year the council engaged its industry sectors in a project called women in information and communication technology. The project's goal was to develop a framework articulating the council's role in the attraction, recruitment, and retention of women in the sector and to look at current best practices. Activities have included two national forums on women in ICT, held in Vancouver and Toronto in February 2008 with over 80 industry leaders across Canada, and the development of a “women in ICT” section on the ICTC website.
As mentioned earlier, there are several other programs that provide support to improve the labour market participation of men and women, often targeting particular client groups. The Government of Canada works with employers to target training to Canada's aboriginal population. The economic action plan enhanced the aboriginal skills and employment partnership program, which fosters partnerships across the spectrum, including the private sector, to help aboriginal Canadians receive skills and employment training. Several of these projects focus on apprenticeships, with aboriginal women and youth as target client groups. Similarly, many of the projects are in non-traditional sectors such as mining.
Another notable example is the aboriginal human resources development strategy, which helps first nations, Métis, and Inuit women prepare for, find, and keep jobs, and it also offers important labour market supports such as child care.
I have provided a broad overview of the federal role as it pertains to women in non-traditional roles. There are many other elements of federal policy programming and legislation that I have not spoken about specifically but which do impact on this complex and changing labour market dynamic. For instance, the Government of Canada's initiatives under student aid, child care, employment insurance, and employment equity are all a few of the important aspects of the discussion.
I understand this committee and HUMA have been looking at some of these areas separately. Clearly women have made remarkable progress in education and labour market participation. That said, we need to continue to address persistent gender gaps and challenges.
I look forward to discussing this and your questions today.