Jade Winter is one of only four female apprentices out of 235 in Palmerston North.

Despite a push to increase the number of women taking up trades apprenticeships, they are still staying away in droves.

﻿Lingering attitudes about the trades being men's work are thwarting the industry's efforts to be inclusive, according to the Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation.

The organisation, one of the largest providers of apprenticeships in New Zealand, is training 11,000 apprentices. But only 305, or 2.8 per cent, are women. In Palmerston North, only four out of 235 apprentices are women – 1.7 per cent.

That's despite the training organisation and other trade organisations calling for more women in trades this year amid a skills shortage.

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Palmerston North plumber Jade Winter has noticed more women working in the industry, but she is surprised by how few are in apprenticeships.

"I was at the [national World Skills] competition in Hamilton last September... It was the first year a woman was in the finals and there were three of us out of the 16 finalists, which was cool."

Winter said only a minority of people still didn't think women were capable of working in the trades, but she did regularly run into that attitude.

In her five years on the job, she's found it's often customers, particularly older ones, and not employers, who have trouble adjusting to a plumber being a woman.

"When I knock on the door [for a job], some people have a shocked look, or make a little gasp, when they see I'm a woman."

Winter said a few would ask when "the boys" were turning up to do the job. Some might peer over her shoulder and try to subtly test her plumbing knowledge, she said.

Viridian Glass area manager Amanda Bond said she was shocked to run into stereotypes while looking to fill a glazier apprentice role at the Palmerston North branch.

Bond thought senior secondary school students looking at what to do next year might be interested.

She was discouraged by what she said she was told by a Palmerston North Girls' High School careers adviser.

"They said: 'We like to encourage our girls into university or beauty school apprenticeships', and that's pretty much it.

"It just about floored me... It's really disappointing to get that kind of attitude [in 2017]."

Girls' High principal Karene Biggs said the school encouraged students to plan for their future, but didn't push them in any particular direction and worked closely with senior students to find opportunities matching their interests.

Biggs said she didn't know what had happened with Viridian Glass, but hoped no staff held opinions like Bond described.

"We would never suggest there's such a thing as a 'man's job' or a 'woman's job' and we have a load of strong girls who would not stand for it if we did."

The school was part of the Gateway and STAR vocational programmes, and held trades academy courses in partnership with UCOL, she said.

Biggs said while it was true most Girls' High students were keen to go the traditional university route, and hair and beauty apprenticeships were popular, there were several students training in mechanical and building trades.

Biggs said students were told of every training or educational opportunity the school was aware of.

Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation chief executive Warwick Quinn said attitudes towards women in the trades had improved, but there was still an undercurrent of belief that the trades weren't suitable for women – and this put a lot of women off.

Quinn said the trades were one of the last traditionally male-dominated workforces to make an industry-wide effort to be more inclusive.

"We should've done this 50 years ago, but this skills crisis has been a catalyst to actually get things moving."