EUROPEAN PROJECT OF WOMEN AND JOB MOBILITY INTERNATIONAL CLOSING CONFERENCE

The International Training Centre of the ILO, AFAEMME and SIPTU are pleased to invite you to participate in the European Project of Women and Job Mobility International Closing Conference that will take place in Turin on 21 February 2008.

The conference deals with the mobility of women in the ITC sector. In particular, the purpose is twofold: to discuss the actual role of women in the ITC sector and to outline new job opportunities for women in the ICT sector.

AFAEMME has been working during all last year 2007 in a project focused on two clusters: women and Information and Communication Technologies. The idea was to address the female population in the European labour market in order to produce leverage on workers mobility. At the same time, focusing on women and on a specific subject of economic growth (Lisboan Strategy-Knowledge economy) a multiple effect on job mobility can be obtained.

The project propose refers to the increasing of the job mobility of women in the TICs at large, trying to combine a more dynamic labour market in the TIC sector and the empowerment of high skill component of the female European labour market.

For this project, AFAEMME has been developed a specific section on the website on www.womemobility.org of a promotional and informative type on job opportunities for young women in TIC and what can be done to overcome the obstacles they find.

European statistics on education show that women enter the labour market with higher education levels than men. Since this has been the case for 20 years, a parallel increase in women doing qualified jobs could be expected.

However, women remain a minority in highly qualified, well paid jobs. The statistics show that the situation is different in the ICT sector, where there are increasing numbers of women in management positions (far more than in the industrial sector). This strongly suggests that the ICT sector offers great professional opportunities for women.

The conference intends to deepen this analysis by looking at women’s role in the ICT sector, their mobility within it, and new ICT job opportunities that draw on women’s professionalism.

At the Conference AFAEMME also present the new projects for this year 2008 that will carry out in partnership with the ILO and EUROCHAMBRE. This new project called: “Raising the awareness of companies about combating gender stereotypes” is to help private sector companies, in particular SMEs and in all sectors, to better understand the benefits of combating gender stereotypes, and improve their ability to act.