Women Building Futures 2023-24 reports illustrate a huge leap in women completing pre-apprenticeship training and joining the trades

Published On

March 6, 2025

2023-24 Annual Report Released 

We are proud to unveil our journey of the past year in Building Opportunity: Women Building Futures 2023-24 Annual Report along side our Impact Reports. These reports show the growth and progress of our programs to transform the lives of women and gender diverse individuals by giving them the opportunity to build life-changing careers in the skilled trades.  

 In 2023-24, WBF saw 284 women graduate from our training programs, a record number. Of those, 265 graduated from Alberta programs and 28 from Saskatchewan.  Also of note, 80 per cent of our graduates found jobs within six months that paid well above a living wage. These graduates are joining the skilled trades and transportation sectors that will help build their provinces.   

WBF is working to expand its model for working with women across the country. Last year, we began building a foundation in Ontario for future training programs. The Ontario team hosted approximately nineteen employment readiness sessions for regional explorers and made seventy connections with industry and government, and eighty-three connections with community organizations, post-secondary institutions, and affiliated agencies through continued attendance at events, such as networking gatherings.  

We also grew our Employers of Choice program. This membership program establishes our employer partners’ commitment to safe, inclusive and equitable workplaces.     

In 2023-24, we welcomed 32 new Employers of Choice, bringing the total to 71, a 61% net increase over the previous year. 

WBF is building opportunity on many fronts from helping women gain personal and financial independence by working in the skilled trades and transportation industries, to helping build a strong skilled workforce, to participating in building a strong and promising economic future, individually and provincially.  

But always at our core, WBF is helping women to move from being unemployed and underemployed to being employed in non-traditional, high skilled trades and transportation careers that set them up for long-term financial and personal independence.   

We are committed to helping women gain better lives and careers and we ask our partners to continue this journey with us to improve the lives of women, their families and communities.   

Read more about our progress and how we are building opportunity,  Annual Report and Impact Reports.