- It appears that the issue of women's unemployment has been a
much lower priority for government than men's unemployment:
- Under the National Training Act, training was concentrated
(68% of Industrial and 72.5% of Skill and Apprenticeship trainees in 1983/1984)
in such secondary industry areas as fabricating, processing, machinery, crafts,
etc.,* although these job sectors had the lowest growth rates in the 1976-1985
time period. These were areas of high unemployment for both men and women, with
16% of the male and 17% of the female labor force in these industries being
unemployed.
- Conversely, there continue to be very few trainees in the
clerical area (6% of Institutional trainees and 14% of Industrial were training
for clerical jobs in 1983/1984).
The government favored training in
secondary industry over the Decade time period even though:
- the
clerical area showed as high a growth rate as secondary industry
- the rate
of unemployment in the clerical area was lower than in secondary
industry.
- The only significant difference between the two areas is
that the largest number* of unemployed women is found in the clerical
area while the largest number of unemployed men is found in secondary
industry.
- National Training Act trainees continue to include few older
women and men.
- Women take more Adult Education courses than men do overall,
but fewer of these courses are job-related than the courses taken by men. This
holds true even among those women who are in the workforce.
Women who
are not presently in the workforce are the largest consumers of personal
development courses.
- The new Canadian Jobs Strategy, with its emphasis on
employer rather than government-funded training, is unlikely to serve women's
needs any better than did the National Training Program since it appears that,
traditionally, employers have been much more willing to pay for training their
male employees than for training female employees.
Note that unemployment rate can be low while the actual
number of those unemployed is high because so many individuals (employed
and unemployed) are found in this job area.
* Source: Employment and Immigration Annual Statistical
Bulletin, 1983/1984 |