Building up the next generation of glass-breaking construction workers
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GOLDEN, Colo. — Fiona had never operated a bulldozer before, but she managed to maneuver a crowded obstacle course nearly perfectly, well-enough that she may have walked away from the Jefferson County Fairgrounds with a promising job prospect if it weren’t for the fact that she was six and that she had class the next day.
Fiona was one of some 1,700 girls, ages six to 23, attending the annual Transportation and Construction GIRL Day, a one-day interactive job fair introducing young girls to careers in more traditionally male-dominated careers such as electrical engineering, construction management and bulldozer operation, among others.
“It’s so cool to see a six-year-old get up on an excavator and go, ‘Oh my God, I could do this!’” said Keller Hayes, the director of Construction and Transportation GIRL. “[Girls] get to meet women and men who want to help and support them get into this industry.”
Siona Iwajomo, a junior at Aurora’s Smoky Hill High School who was attending the event for her second year, credits the mentors, exhibits (there were nearly 70 this year) and other young attendees with helping her “find her place.”
“I think Career Day helped me to realize that I'm not the only one,” said Iwajomo. “I'm not the only one who loves construction, who wants to be in a field that is dominated by males.”
“There's so much opportunity for me out there.”
Despite recent increases in female employment, construction and transportation continue to be predominantly male-dominated industries. Only about 14% of workers in construction are women, up from about 12.5% in 2016, according to findings from the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC).
Colorado's construction workforce is just under 10% women according to numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which falls below the about 11% national average reported by the BLS.
The DOC reported a lack of technical training and job awareness, as reasons for the gender gap, as well as some womens’ concerns about potentially discriminatory or unsafe working conditions.
Sexual harassment has been a repeatedly-cited issue among female construction workers. One 2021 report by the Institute for Women’s Policy and Research finding that one in four women (26.5%) surveyed “are always or frequently harassed just for being a woman.”
There are similar findings along racial and sexuality lines as well, with about 21% of women of color reporting to have felt “always or frequently racially harassed” while working in construction.
The same study pointed to a lack of apprenticeship opportunities, child care opportunities and female representation within the workforce as inhibitors to women entering the construction workforce.
Respondents placed an emphasis on a need for workplace policies and local union support, along with commitments to diverse hiring goals and a “women-focused pre-apprenticeship program.”
Hayes, the project director at the HOYA Foundation (the organization behind Transportation and Construction GIRL Day), knows first-hand the many barriers that women face in transportation and construction.
She spent nearly two decades consulting with the Colorado Department of Transportation, working to support minority and women-owned businesses in transportation and construction.
Hayes underlined the importance of exhibiting the array of careers available to young girls in these industries, as well as clearly demonstrating the many benefits that such careers might bring.
For example, Hayes emphasized the slightly smaller pay gap between male and female construction workers, with some sources (Hayes included) reporting women making as much as 99% of their male counterparts’ earnings (compared to the 83.6% national average from the BLS’s 2023 report).
Hayes pointed to the overall labor shortage in construction and transportation as well. The Colorado Workforce Development Council estimated that the state needs about 45,000 new skilled trade workers in three years, jobs that Hayes believes could be filled by women.
Iwajomo said that being a woman, and a woman of color, caused her to stand out in some settings.
She is concurrently enrolled at the Cherry Creek Innovation Campus, a trade school where she takes classes in more career-specific subjects. Iwajomo is the only girl in the class of around 30 boys.
Yet regardless of differences in appearance, Iwajomo remains confident in her abilities, thanks in part to industry mentors and teachers, as well as her experiences working and learning around other enthusiastic young female industry workers at events like Transportation and Construction GIRL.
“When I look around in the construction industry, I don’t see a lot of people that look like me,” said Iwajomo. “Seeing women who are like, ‘I don’t care about that. I just want to go and do what I dream.’”
“That inspires me to think, ‘I don’t have to care about what other people around me necessarily look like.’”
Iwajomo is now an ambassador for Transportation and Construction GIRL. She plans on becoming an electrician, though the career day experience has opened her eyes to a number of different paths she now finds interesting.
Regardless of where she ends up, she’s grateful for the “sisterhood” she’s discovered in transportation and construction.
“Having that visual, maybe on a bad day [I] can remember there was this army of women who all had the same goals and interests as me,” Iwajomo said.
“And I'm never going to be alone in this industry.”