The share of women in construction has hit a record high, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Women surged into the industry starting around 2016, even as the number of men in construction lagged. When we called experts and advocates for women in the trades, they said one painful truth explains why labor shortages benefit women: hiring them takes extra work. Women are less likely to have experience, since men have dominated the trades for eons, and they’re often not plugged into traditional word-of-mouth hiring pipelines. The turnaround in construction coincided with a surge of women into the workforce — led by Black and Hispanic women — that culminated in most U.S. jobs being held by women for only the second time in history. Federal legislation could further normalize the presence of women on construction sites. The bipartisan infrastructure law President Biden signed last November is a “game changer for women’s inclusion in the trades,” Jackson said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/11/hispanic-women-construction-trades/