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Context of the Presentation
- 70% of labour force growth over the next ten years will be
women, between the ages of 24 and 40, most of whom will have a child under six,
requiring day care.
- Full time women workers are presently earning only 60% of
what men earn.
- Women accounted for 73% of part-time workers in June, 1980.
Most were employed in service occupations.
- Because of women workers over-concentration in clerical and
retail occupations, where technological change is being introduced rapidly,
women will bear the brunt of technological change. Projections vary from 1
million to 1½ million jobs lost through microtechnology by the end of
the decade.
- As the Science Council report 'Who Turns the Wheel?' has
demonstrated, women have been severely disadvantaged by an education system
which has historically discouraged female students from studying math and
sciences. Women are therefore ill-prepared to adapt to microtechnology. Women
clerical workers will require special re-training to enjoy the benefits of
working with the chip.
- Women have experienced great difficulty and discrimination
in entering the skilled and semi-skilled trades areas, many of which are
designated as national occupations in the National Training Program and
destined to the bulk of national training funds. Only 3% of enrollees in
apprentice training programs are women and only 27.4% of students in CEIC
Industrial Training Programs are female.
- Women, as 52% of the population, are the largest sector with
special needs. With the increase of marriage breakdown, growing numbers of
women with children find themselves having to depend on public assistance as a
sole source of income. They cannot compete for well paying 'breadwinner' jobs
in the labour market and cannot find quality affordable day care for their
children. In Ontario alone, 52% of female-headed, single parent families live
on public assistance: they number over 70,000. Immigrant women have found few
supports in this country for English as a second language training followed by
skills development. The stresses of adjustment to life in a new country often
lead to marriage break- down and with it sponsorship breakdown which
automatically disqualifies them for training funds.
In a recent study
on Native women in the Winnipeg labour market, native women's employability was
found to be inversely proportional to their education. The more years of
schooling they had, the less likely they were to be employed. Women are
expected to account for 55% of the growth in the native labour forces age group
in the next few years.
The highlighting of these facts has been designed to provide
part of the context within which women must examine the National Training Act
and the National Training Program. |