Jill of All Trades: How Fanshawe College is wooing women into the trades

Give skilled trades a chance.

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That’s the message one 15-year-old has for female high school students considering their career options.

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“You should always give trades a chance because there are not a lot of women who are interested,” Stratford teen Eve Pearn said. “I’ve heard a lot of good things about (skilled trades) and I feel like it would be a good place to start.”

In a first for Fanshawe College, Pearn was one among 90 London-area female students given a hands-on introduction to the trades with welding, framing and soldering projects Thursday.

Jill of All Trades was a day-long educational fair with workshops and guest speakers designed to introduce female students in grades nine to 12 to “the benefits of a future in skilled trades and apprenticeships.”

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The students performed diagnostic testing on both combustion and electric vehicles, used welding techniques to fabricate a metal flower, framed a wall with two-by-fours and bent and soldered copper piping to create a “barn star” out of sheet metal.

“It’s a lot of hands-on that we don’t always get to do when you are sitting in class,” Pearn said. “I really like to work with my hands.”

Fellow student Taylor Blue, 16, said taking part in the event and talking with female mentors was inspirational and has got her thinking about a career in the trades.

She recommends female students spend a day at the Jill of All Trades event if they get the opportunity.

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“It doesn’t matter if you’re experienced or not you still have a good time and learn new things,” Blue said.

Stephen Patterson, Fanshawe’s dean of science, trades and technology, said the program “tends to resonate with young people.

“London and Southwestern Ontario desperately needs. . . to bring women to the skilled trades with a particular focus on youth,” he said. “At present, if you look around at all of the trades across the province, we’re tens of thousands short, and if you do the math, it tells the tale that we need engage 10 to 12 per cent of the female population. . . to get the job done.”

The workshop is just one of many initiatives, supported by the provincial government, Fanshawe and other colleges have undertaken to increase the number of skilled trades workers in Ontario. This week, Fanshawe announced 10 students, including three from London, have been named the college’s inaugural recipients of the Schulich builders’ scholarships for skilled trades.

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As part of this new program, Fanshawe has provided five $20,000 scholarships for students in a one-year certificate program and five $40,000 scholarships for those pursuing a two-year diploma program.

Amid the historic skilled trades shortage, Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government has promised money for projects and programs designed to tackle stigma, spark interest in parents and lure students into what they say are “exciting and lucrative careers.”

In the construction trades alone, 100,000 more trades people will be needed during the next 10 years to meet a provincial target of building 1.5 million homes, as well as the public infrastructure programs the government has planned.

On top of that, one in three skilled tradespeople is older than 55 with retirement on the horizon.

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New apprenticeship registrations from women are up 30 per cent this year, and there was a 25 per cent increase in apprenticeship registrations between April 1, 2022, and February of this year, former labor minister Monte McNaughton said earlier this year.

Stigma surrounding jobs in skilled trades has hurt the industry in the past, he said.

“One of the challenges for the past couple decades, under governments of all stripes, is that they told all young people that the only way to be successful in life was to go to university,” McNaughton said. “It’s simply not the truth. Skilled trades are well paying.”

McNaughton left the Progressive Conservative caucus to take a job in the private sector in September.

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