About 35 per cent of those who enter the construction industry give up within five years and the dropout rate is even higher for women and for workers without a degree.

The new figures come from a report on abandonment in construction by the Commission de la construction du Québec, obtained by Action travail des femmes through an access to information request.

Abandonment is often linked to a low number of hours worked in the first year. Thus, the dropout rate is 62 per cent for those who worked less than 150 hours, and gradually decreases to 15 per cent for those who worked 1,000 hours or more in the year.

Drop-out rates after five years are very high for women, reaching 67 per cent for bricklayer-mason and 62 per cent for carpenter-joiner.

Katia Atif of Action Travail des Femmes (ATF) lamented the fact that the situation has not changed much for women since a previous survey on the same issue in 2004.

Eric Boisjoly, general manager of the FTQ-Construction, said the survey shows that it is not necessary to bring more workers into the industry, but rather to retain those who are there by improving their working conditions.