WOBO recognises diversity within the construction industry.

Last month OSHA met with women in the construction industry to discuss their workplace safety and job opportunities.

“While both men and women working in construction face many of the same risks, there are some unique issues that are of greater concern to women.”

The number of women employed in the U.S. construction industry grew substantially, by 81.3% from 1985 to 2007; however, due to a loss of over 2.5 million construction jobs from 2007 to 2010, there has been a sharp decline of women working. As illustrated below in Table I ⁽¹⁾, and since its peak in 2007, more than 300,000 women workers left the construction industry by 2010. While only 9% of U.S. construction workers are women, which is a relatively small percentage compared to other industries (see Table II ⁽²⁾ below), there were still over 800,000 women workers employed in construction (i.e., managerial, professional, administrative, and production employees) in 2010. Of those, approximately 200,000 were employed in production occupations, such as laborers, electricians, plumbers, etc.