The percentage of women working for the City of Winnipeg dipped again for the fifth consecutive year in 2023, and the municipal government continued to fall short on most of its other diversity targets.
According to a city report on the latest employee survey data, while women account for 47.77 per cent of the local labour force, they made up just 26.37 per cent of the roughly 10,600-employee civic workforce last year.
And that represents a slight, but steady, decrease from 26.91 per cent in 2022, 28.23 per cent in 2021, 29.35 per cent in 2020 and 30 per cent in 2019.
“The pandemic had a lasting impact, had a hard impact on women and that hasn’t recovered to the extent that working women need,” said Diane Burelle, the city’s equity, diversity and inclusion co-ordinator.
“During the pandemic, many daycares closed (and) there’s not been that resurgence of that support,” she said.
The gaps in support for mothers during the public health crisis, combined with the reality that women have, for decades, remained under-represented in jobs traditionally held by men, have contributed to the current problem, Burelle said.
“It is an enduring trend that we’re working very hard to reverse,” she said.
The Winnipeg Police Service and Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service have had success in reaching out to potential female employees, she said, noting the portion of women among WPS staff is now about 1.2 percentage points higher than that of the overall city workforce.
Initiatives aiming to attract more workers are in place for all six “equity groups” identified by the city, as it tries to ensure its workforce is as diverse as the population, she said.
The groups include Indigenous, racialized and LGBTTQ+ people, as well as women, newcomers and people with disabilities.
Efforts to attract more women include a camp enabling girls to try out firefighting tasks, she said.
“It’s to sort of plant the seed that that’s something they can consider for their future,” she said.
”It is an enduring trend that we’re working very hard to reverse.”–Diane Burelle, City of Winnipeg
Last year, the city found Indigenous people accounted for 11.06 per cent of its workforce and 10.01 per cent of the overall labour force. Racialized people made up 16.77 per cent of city workers and 24.27 per cent of the labour force. People with disabilities accounted for 5.39 per cent of the city workforce and 36.23 per cent of the total labour force. Newcomers made up 1.09 per cent of city workers and 6.18 per cent of the broader workforce.
LGBTTQ+ employees accounted for 3.61 per cent of city workers, though that group’s share of the total workforce isn’t clear, the city report said.
The report cautioned the data is a snapshot of diversity, since not all city employees answer the voluntary survey.
Burelle said the city will continue holding mass recruitment fairs to attract new workers, while conducting anti-racism and anti-oppression training and seeking more staff feedback on inclusion, as it works toward its diversity goals.
“It is a slow journey, it is a lengthy journey…. The fact that these gaps endure after this many years, since the ’80s, really just speaks to how complex these systems are and that they need to be re-examined with an equity lens,” she said.
Katherine Breward, a University of Winnipeg associate business professor and diversity expert, said post-COVID return-to-work policies had a disproportionate impact on women and people with disabilities, which is affecting their representation in the workforce.
“The former still tend to have more work-life balance issues and are more likely to give up work for family responsibilities. The latter may see a return to the office as undesirable for many reasons, from practical disability-related ones through to social stigma,” Breward told the Free Press in an email.
She added that under-representation among workers with disabilities appears to be consistent over time, as common recruitment and hiring practices can create barriers to addressing the issue.
“Some organizations use online pre-screening tests that are not accessible for the visually impaired, or that have strict time limits that unfairly, negatively impact those with dyslexia or ADHD,” Breward said.
Coun. Markus Chambers, the chairman of council’s human rights committee, said the city must continue to boost its efforts to ensure its workforce matches the diversity of the broader community.
“We talk about Winnipeg being a more inclusive city and when we’re not meeting our strides, it is frustrating in that perspective,” said Chambers (St. Norbert-Seine River). “We’ve got to do a better job of being proactive and attracting people.”
Chambers said he’d like to see the city increase recruitment efforts focusing on inclusion, including outreach to new Canadians.
joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca
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Joyanne Pursaga
Reporter
Joyanne is city hall reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. A reporter since 2004, she began covering politics exclusively in 2012, writing on city hall and the Manitoba Legislature for the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in early 2020. Read more about Joyanne.
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