CONSTRUCTION company bosses and teachers have been challenged to help attract more women into the industry in Cumbria.

Mick Farley, executive director of the county's Learning and Skills Council, issued the plea when speaking at the opening of a Construction Industry Training Board summer school in Carlisle on Friday.

Urging young women to consider taking up a career in construction, Mr Farley also called for teachers and careers advisers to strongly challenge the "stereotypical" subject and career choices embedded in the county's culture and working life.

"Women make up just one per cent of employment in construction occupations and this not only contributes to the industry's skills shortages, it also restricts the life chances of half its potential workforce," said Mr Farley.

He told employers there was a correlation between skills shortages and under-representation of women in the sector.

"That makes occupational segregation not just a gender issue' but a barrier to addressing skills short-ages in the industry.

"So I want to challenge employers to address traditional recruitment methods and choices not just because it is right to do so but because a workforce recruited from only half of the potential source of labour does not deliver the best workers.

"And because recruiting more women could help to reduce current skills shortages which are so damaging to the industry in terms of loss of business, delays and increased operating costs."

Mr Farley acknowledged that "gender segregation" was not confined to the construction industry, with the problem also prevalent in engineering and childcare.

He claimed "occupational segregation" was one of the key causes of the gender pay gap, which stands at 18 per cent between the average salary for men and women.

"There is currently a clear financial incentive for women to choose training and work in sectors where men predominate, as pay tends to be higher in these sectors and they include construction."