The Tech Council of Australia launched a program to increase women’s participation in tech jobs. One of the partners in the effort is jobs website operator Seek. 

“Women still represent only one in four tech workers in Australia — a statistic that does not reflect the broader demographics of our society,” Damian Kassabgi, CEO of the council, said in a press release. “To ensure Australia remains a global technology leader, we must do more to increase the opportunities for women to reskill and upskill into tech jobs.” 

The Next Wave; Women’s Tech Transitions program will include the development of a career-switching action plan and interactive workshops. It will also include other initiatives that highlight the benefits of tech careers and promote gender, equity and inclusion in the tech sector. 

Women are nearly twice as likely to transition into tech roles mid-career than when they first join the job market, according to the council. 

“The TCA’s new program will promote accessible pathways for women to join the tech sector and, in doing so, will significantly increase women’s participation so we can build a diverse tech industry that draws on everyone’s strengths,” Kassabgi said. “This is what is needed to drive innovation and establish Australia as a world-leading digital economy.” 

In one example, Pexa Group’s focus on diversity and inclusion increases the female participation in its workforce to 38.5% from 21%. 

“The underrepresentation of women in Australia’s tech workforce deprives us of the much-needed talent required to drive the widespread adoption of emerging technologies at scale,” Eglantine Etiemble, chief technology officer as Pexa and nonexecutive director at the Tech Council of Australia, said in a press release. 

“At Pexa, we have seen firsthand how greater female participation benefits our workforce by enhancing employee engagement and accelerating innovation,” Etiemble said. “It would be great to see this replicated throughout the Australian tech ecosystem.” 

The Tech Council of Australia received a grant to deliver the program from the Australian government’s Building Women’s Careers Program. 

“It is a key tenet of the Labor party that no one is held back and no one left behind,” Minister for Skills and Training Andrew Giles said in a press release. Every skills area in Australia with a shortage has something in common, he said, “and that is a really skewed distribution by gender, so we’re making this investment to do something about it.” 

In addition to Seek, other partners in the program include Ubank, tech and training talent provider _nology, and Project F, a group aimed at gender equity in tech.