Today we are delighted to announce the renewed support from J.P. Morgan, that will allow us to support 150 young women into tech apprenticeships, to continue our mission to increase access and inclusion for female tech apprentice candidates. Our aim is to build on the progress made, to achieve the goal of 33% female participation rate in tech apprenticeships in Ireland by 2022 and therefore contributing to an improved gender balance in the overall ICT specialist workforce.
The project supported by J.P. Morgan will act as a demonstration model for improving gender balance in the tech workforce and provide a source of inspiration for young women to access ICT specialist career paths. We will work in partnership with schools and the education & training sector, to help integrate pathways to tech careers for female students into their ongoing career activities.
We also hope that the learnings from this project will inform policy makers in Ireland, providing useful insights to set goals and strategies for better gender balance and diversity in the tech workforce.
Fit has long striven to play its part in attaining gender balance in the tech sector, in tandem with greater diversity and inclusion. Through a pilot program supported by J.P Morgan in 2017, FIT has already achieved the ambitious goal of increasing female participation rate in tech apprenticeships from 8% to 20% by 2019.
We are excited about this new project that will allow us to overachieve our original target, reaching 33% female participation rate in tech apprenticeships by 2022. We believe this is particularly important given that we all know that young people are ‘disproportionately affected’ by covid 19 related job losses, and currently only one in every five ICT specialists in Ireland is a woman.
“Initiatives like this, give young women hope, direction, and a clear pathway to a better future” George Ryan COO, FIT Ltd.
“Ireland is a global technology hub and increasing the diversity and inclusion of the sector has never been as important as today. We are passionate about supporting more young women into tech careers, especially during a time in which the labour market might change dramatically. Accessing apprenticeship pathways can lead to future- proof jobs and we are delighted to support this new initiative by FIT” Carin Bryans, Senior Country Office, J.P. Morgan Ireland.
This programme is part of J.P. Morgan’s $350 million commitment to prepare people for the future of work, including helping youth in Ireland acquire the skills and expertise necessary to access promising career pathways.
