High retrenchment rate for women in IT: UK

Such discrimination is also reflected in the widening gender ratio as the industry fails to attract or retain female staff.

But attracting more women to the sector is vital to easing the perennial skills shortages and enabling the UK to compete in the world economy, says Intellect programme manager Carrie Hartnell. ‘We are losing women from the industry at a time when we need to attract skilled workers into IT,’ she said.

Although surprising yet the fact is, women account for 46 per cent of the UK labour force, but they make up just 19 per cent of IT sector employees a number which has steadily decreased since 2001.

And 54 per cent among them complain about wage discrimination against them.

The UK needs women to plug skills gaps, said Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) policy director Anne Madden.

‘More women working is a prime way of addressing skills shortages, and the fact that we are not recruiting women into IT puts the UK at a disadvantage,’ she said. But economic underperformance will not be overcome by simply attracting more female entrants to the IT industry.

There is also work to be done to ensure that those with jobs are employed at an appropriate level, according to the EOC.

‘We are massively underutilising the skills that female employees have,’ said Madden. She added that it is essential to make right use of their skills at the right level as they enter the industry and ensure that women are not kept underemployed. At the moment the UK is not making use of the full spread of its workforce. Increasing the numbers in employment cannot help but boost innovation and creativity, said Madden.

In September 2006 the government-backed Women and Work Commission estimated that increasing female participation in the labour market, particularly in higher-paid occupations and roles, would contribute between £15bn and £23bn every year to the UK economy. The effect of skills gaps on the bottom line is encouraging IT sector employers to address these issues, said Karen Price, chief executive of sector skills council e-Skills UK.

‘The changing nature of the expertise required in the industry means employers are keen to take advantage of the wider talent pool that women offer,’ she said.

E-Skills’ UK research suggests that gender pay inequality often tails off in higher-skilled jobs, particularly those after first degree level. It will therefore be interesting to note whether differences in pay gap decreases as more women enter the workforce.

If it happens, then the trends would be reverse from the general trends of women being dropped or factories getting relocated from those sectors where the wage-gap started declining. Such have been the experience of women engaged in South and South-East Asian export-oriented assembly line industries.

Released on: 06 September 2007
Resource: http://www.vnunet.com/