Serious message all in good humour

The building industry is trying a new approach to attract women to the trades – tackling it with a little humour.

Its new campaign includes a series of funny videos featuring comedian Kura Forrester and Tess Waters, who plays Dave, a mythical construction boss. Together they consult wa¯hine in the trades about their experiences.

One of the women featured in the campaign is 27-year-old Joy Tufuga, a second-year carpentry apprentice in Levin. Tufuga was born and raised in Samoa but came to New Zealand eight years ago to care for her grandmother.

Her ultimate goal is to build a house for her family back home.

‘‘The dream was to help my family. I did want to be a nurse but didn’t have the chance to study, and then I was helping my uncle with a family renovation – that inspired me to join the trades.’’

She admits the first year was difficult and she was scared to ask for help. In the end, she realised she had to change her mindset and stop caring about what others thought.

She says anyone can be a builder if they really want to be.

‘‘You don’t need to be someone else to be a builder, or to be a man to be builder. Just be yourself.’’

The star of the series, Waters, is also the project manager for Trade Careers, the collective behind the campaign, which she says has a serious side.

More than 22,000 women lost their jobs last year because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Waters said women made up a small proportion of the construction business, just over 13 per cent – including administration jobs.

Only 2.6 per cent were on the tools, and only about 3 per cent of the enrolments for construction or infrastructure apprenticeships since 2019 were from women, despite the fact apprenticeships are now funded.

To find out what was stopping women from considering the trades, Trade Careers conducted a survey in April. Two thousand women responded, as did many employers.

Women worried that the sector would be ‘‘really laddy’’, that they would be on minimum wage for four years, and ‘‘how do I get in the door if I don’t have an uncle or a dad or brother who can give me a recommendation’’?

One of the survey’s surprises was that many of those interested in joining trades were women in their mid to late 30s, Waters said. ‘‘We’re missing a huge market.’’

Employers were keen to take female apprentices but had some concerns. ‘‘They were just worried about, basically, pregnancy, parenting and periods,’’ Waters said.

Bosses had questions about school runs, accommodating pregnant workers and toilets. Many sites did not have a portaloo or, if they did, only had a urinal. All were issues with easy fixes, Waters said.

The results of the survey will be out next month. Trade Careers is backed by several industry groups including the Women in Trades Collective, the Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation, Connexis, Skills, and Competenz.

‘‘You don’t need to be someone else to be a builder.’’ Joy Tufuga Carpentry apprentice, above