“Women hardly interested in technical jobs”
economy
Managers in leading companies and the Public Employment Service (AMS) criticize that women are less interested in technical professions than ever before. Despite many funding programs, only a few young women want to work in these economic sectors, where you earn better and often have job guarantees.
On the one hand, there is a permanent shortage of skilled workers and a lack of apprentices. In addition, career initiatives for young women are in vain, according to experts.
“Initiatives don’t go down well with women”
Business has long hoped to attract more women into technical professions. But there is still little interest. This is also criticized by Erwin Pilz, Managing Director at Alba Tooling – a manufacturer of manufacturing systems for high-quality industrial components in Forstau (Pongau): “The successes are very manageable. We ourselves were part of such an initiative a few years ago. But in the end it didn’t reach the target group.”
The Forstau company is urgently looking for two to four young people who are interested in a technical apprenticeship. It has never been as difficult as this year, says Marketing Director Rosa Siller-Vierthaler: “On the one hand, it certainly has something to do with CoV, where getting together didn’t work.”
“Many still have inhibitions”
In addition to the lockdowns, the low birth rates and the still existing inhibitions among young women to work in a male-dominated environment are slowing factors, says Siller-Vierthaler. All of this means that only 15 percent of all working women in Austria work in the MINT professions mentioned – in the well-paid areas of mathematics, IT, natural sciences or technology.