(Montreal) In the end, 7,218 women worked on a construction site in 2022, “a record number”, underlines the Commission de la construction du Québec.

By way of comparison, there were 6,250 in 2021. These are the final figures, taken from the CCQ report for the year 2022 which has just been published.

Although this number of 7,218 seems impressive at first glance, it actually represents only 3.65% of the total workforce in the industry.

But we see how far they have come: they were only 515 in 2000, 1904 in 2010 and 2289 in 2015.

These women who worked in the construction industry also worked more hours there than the previous year, an average of 818 hours, compared to 1,071 hours for men, in 2022.

In 2021, women worked an average of 765 hours and men 1038 hours.

The trades where there are the most women are those of painter (1712), carpenter-joiner (1423), laborer (1268) and electrician (627).

The trades of plasterer, tiler, surveyor, pipefitter, tinsmith and roofer follow.

However, the dropout rate for women in the industry remains higher than for men.

Thus, after one year, the dropout rate for women reaches 21%, while it is 13% for men. After five years, the dropout rate for women is 52% and 32% for men.

This is of concern to the Construction Board, unions and employers. The industry has also set up a program for equal access for women in order to increase their representation on construction sites.