On and Off the Ramp

In 2008 5 million jobs in Canada requiring post secondary education went unfilled. This show there is a strong business case for ramping up placement efforts to get more women back into the workforce. A 2016 survey of RIT  found that 27% of women and 38% of those already married, plan to interrupt their career to care for family. We need to examine why women today are finding it hard to re-enter the workforce and on ramp.

Though the percentage of offramp has produced by 10 points still women who are going off-ramp, stay out of the job for longer period of time, by about 1 year and now more than that too. In last 6 years that the number has increased by double. Women who are on job find it tough to leave their job while those who are not doing any job find it hard to rejoin the company. Also companies are reluctant about their culture fit, as a person who has not worked in corporate for many years alongside a hard driving and ambitious person will they fit now?One of the most common off-ramps for women to exit through is maternity leave, an employer-approved process allows people to put their careers on hold to start families. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) discovered that 83 per cent of women who work during their pregnancy take paid leave following the birth of the child.

From 2000 to 2010, companies have seen a striking increase in the number of professional women whose husbands are not working. Companies having more women in their management teams had 17% higher stock price growth and the average operating profit was almost double the industry average. According to London times the average number of week people remained unemployed jumped from 20 to 28. Also people who feel discouraged and stopped looking for a job also increased to 2 million, 1st time in history.

Women earning is very important for the family budget. As a society, we have to start thinking differently about returning women, recognize their incredible value to long-term business success and start innovating with them in mid. We need to throw away our assumption and create a more established and systematic pathway for both off ramp and merge back it. Even a small ram off can push back economy and can create an economic crisis. There are 4 billion women with college or advanced degrees trying to merge back into the workforce. Let’s work together to open up paths for them.