Employment

In the metalworking industry, only one in five employees is a woman

According to Confcommercio data, there are about 1,300 mechanics in Italy. Numbers are also low for HGV driving: women account for only 5.6%.

by Letizia Giangualano

7 March 2024

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5' min read

5' min read

Only one in five employees is a woman in metalworking. Although sectors such as mechanics, information and communication technology, and logistics are developing strongly, even if companies are looking for resources, the presence of women is still low. From a survey conducted by Fim and Cisl among 700 companies operating in the metalworking industry in Italy, out of 295,057 employees, we know that women workers number 61,664, with a percentage of 20.9%. According to Confcommercio data, there are about 1,300 female mechanics in Italy. Numbers are also low for the driving of heavy goods vehicles: women represent only 5.6% of the total number of truck drivers.

Gender wage gap

There is also a gap at contractual and salary level: women's superminimes are 15% lower than the general average, and 19% lower than the average for men. On part-time contracts, it is reported that they make up 5.35% of the employees in the metalworking companies monitored, and 81.8% of this share is female. This figure has an ambivalent reading. While on the one hand it is synonymous with a company policy open to flexibility, on the other hand it denotes the persistence of cultural models according to which women, in case of need, give up work or part of it (also because of lower wages).

What are Italian companies doing to bridge these gaps? Because while it is true that some 175 thousand female students have decided to help dispel the myth of male-dominated professions by enrolling in engineering, it is also true that professions in the engineering sector do not only include engineers, and that they can also offer important opportunities to female graduates seeking employment.

Training Projects

An academy dedicated to women in order to acquire specialised skills in carbon lamination, which are in great demand on the market: this is the 'Mechanical Millwork Learning for women' project launched for the first time in the Seriana Valley, with companies such as Acerbis, Lamiflex and Persico as forerunners. Set up with the help of Adecco and Servizi Confindustria Bergamo, the project started in July and ended at the end of August. Seven women took part, in three different companies, all of them employed from the first day of the Academy on a permanent basis with a staff leasing contract with Adecco. With the exception of one of them who then chose to continue with another route, they are all still active in these companies.

For the unemployed

Another women's training project in the world of mechanics, aimed in particular at unemployed women, is the CNC Women Academy organised by SBS Side by Side with Adecco Italia and supported by Siemens, in its Digital Industries division. The edition that ended at the beginning of November involved 9 women for 200 hours of training in the classroom and in the field, at companies in the Bergamo area that supported the initiative. Of the 9 participants, 8 are still working at the companies.

Women4 is the project of Gi Group and Rhea Vendors, a company that produces coffee machines. A total of 154 women applied to attend a training course for mechanical assembly workers, many of them coming directly from the employment centre, through an active policy course. The common thread linking the participants, age range 20-50, is the desire for redemption, both social and professional. The 6 participants who attended the course at the Caronno Pertusella site will be placed in Rhea in the next two weeks.

In Campania

Instead, the AWS re/Start project, a free, full-time programme aimed at developing the skills needed to start a career in cloud computing, is aimed at women resident in Campania. The edition, a collaboration between Develhope and Amazon Web Services (AWS), will kick off on 11 March, and has been postponed due to the high number of applications, so much so that the number of places available has been increased from 25 to 35 (a waiting list will be set up if there are more than 35 valid applications). The women involved are unemployed and not students, and upon completion of the programme, Develhope will match them with partner companies, supporting their entry into the tech world for entry-level cloud roles such as cloud operations, site reliability, infrastructure support and technically related business support functions.

Supporting welfare and acting on culture

It is not only with training that companies can make it easier for women to stay in the labour market, but it is also through a culture that helps to dispel stereotypes and through well-considered measures that support all reconciliation issues that force women into unwanted choices.

Among the companies that have distinguished themselves in this sense, Avio Aero has set up the Women's Network, which aims to create a network among the company's female population, naturally including colleagues. Through groups of employees working on topics of common interest, events, seminars and mentorships, projects are carried out that contribute to creating culture and awareness on women's issues.

Trenton is a company engaged in high-tech engineering for agriculture, based in Castelfranco Emilia (Modena). With 23 women out of a total of 150 employees, managing director Carlotta Giovetti launched 'Be(e) different', a training course initially aimed at the female part of the company: through lectures and collective meetings, people are called upon to 'put themselves in the shoes of a managing director' in order to manage a budget to be allocated to initiatives against the gender gap in favour of the company and the community.

Master, a company that deals with high-tech components for aluminium windows and doors, already recognised in the 'Great Place To Work' ranking in 2022, supports the reintegration of employees following maternity leave through the 'Close to mum' programme, which provides an economic bonus for new mothers and the possibility of greater hour flexibility.

Measures to support parenthood and family responsibilities can certainly make a difference. Also because, again according to the Fim Cisl report, flexibility and reconciliation solutions are meeting the needs of workers, while they remain deficient precisely on the family issue: 99% of those employed in the sector have access to solutions such as hourly flexibility (87.9% of workers), smart working (80.3%), hour bank (65.4%), additional leave (62.7%) and facilities for transfers (36.9%). In the context of parental care, on the other hand, we can count facilities for extracurricular activities (34.7% of workers), contributions for crèches (29.8%), parenting support services (26.2%) and contributions for the birth of a child (8.9%). And of this shortage, as we know, women in particular pay the price.