Women in the majority in business ?

Plenty of interesting material in the latest ESRI forecast on labour trends. As usual they qualify their findings, saying it’s only a forecast not 100% accurate.

One very interesting finding is that if current trends continue, then by 2012 women will form the majority of the “Business, Legal and other Professional” occupations category. That is men will be in a minority in these occupations. I find this fascinating.

I remember starting work as a trainee accountant in 1980 and being a bit of a novelty, as for the first time ever, my employer had taken on female trainees. By some very strange coincidence, all four trainees taken on by the firm that year were female and this helped as it meant we had some peer support in a very male orientated world. Hard to take part in coffee break discussions when you did not know what sport a winger played in (Rugby) let alone the scoring system. Most of the men were very helpful, but there was some resentment from certain individuals as they’d been asked to take down their female pin up’s pictures from the office walls!

A key lesson I learned in that office was firstly , peer support is invaluable is most situations, so always take time to identify people in your job or industry that you like, can trust and talk to about job related details.

Secondly, it helps job satisfaction if you have something in common with your team mates. A skillsoft survey states that good social relationships is one of the biggest factors in job satisfaction. Having a shared interest with your colleagues supports enjoyable conversations. So if you join a new office or employer, and your colleagues are fanatical GAA supporters and you hate sports, don’t shut your self out of those conversations. Try to learn a little about the sport so at least you can participate rather than sit mutely. You might even learn to enjoy it.

You can download the ESRI report Here

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