LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — The Michigan Girls’s Fee on Tuesday unveiled its “Pathways to High Wage Careers” report in a digital city corridor, laying out methods to assist extra girls enter Michigan’s highest-growth, highest-paying fields.
The fee stated girls’s labor pressure participation in Michigan lags about 10% behind males, translating into an untapped financial alternative between $24 billion and $47 billion per yr. These findings are based mostly on statewide roundtables and up to date surveys that recognized financial safety as the highest precedence for Michigan girls.
The report organizes enter from employers, apprentices, enterprise homeowners, and policymakers into three levers to develop girls’s entry to excessive‑wage work: apprenticeships, small enterprise possession and entrepreneurship and company pathways.
Apprenticeships
In apprenticeships, girls stay underrepresented. About 3% of Michigan’s on-skilled trades workforce is made up of ladies, and girls account for 10% of all registered apprentices. The report recommends steps that enhance recruitment and retention, together with gender-inclusive sanitary services on job websites.
Small companies and entrepreneurship
Girls-owned companies are rising, however feminine founders obtain a smaller share of enterprise capital than males. The fee really useful making a statewide first-rung capital fund, offering technical help and reinstating angel investor tax credit to diversify entry to capital.
Company careers
Girls maintain about 23% of government officer roles in Michigan’s public corporations, and girls of shade maintain about 2%. The MWC recommends passing Michigan’s 2025 Pay Fairness and Transparency legislative package deal with enterprise incentives, subsidize childcare and caregiving monetary help, and supply formal sponsorship applications to make sure girls are advocated for in promotion conversations.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer joined the occasion and expanded on childcare as a key barrier that pushes many ladies to pause their careers. The report recommends increasing the MI Tri-Share Baby Care Program, which splits the price of licensed childcare evenly among the many employer, the worker, and the state.
Learn the complete report right here.
