“The career fair showed me I don’t have to be what society wants me to be.”
-Amber Poer, HHS Class of ’13
Women have moved up in the world throughout the century from staying at home to jobs that normally have men in employment. On Friday, May 17th, students from Heritage High School attended the Women in Trade Career Fair in Oregon that is anything but traditional.
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The fair included hands-on activities for women and girls to explore the possibility of taking a future job in the trades. Activities like construction experience, positive skills coaching, and working directly with female role models were available at the career fair.
High-paying trades like plumbing and construction were encouraged careers for young women to pursue because women have remained 2.5% of the construction-trades skilled workforce for the last 30 years.
Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc. who runs the Women in Trade Career Fair has been doing it since 1993 to increase the number of women working in the trades and to help fill the gap in the labor force that has dropped because upcoming retirements of skilled trades people.