Women returning to the workforce

Most mothers will take time off to raise their babies and children, whether for just a few months or a few years. The ones who take some years before re-embarking on their career, whatever stage they may have been at, will tend to find themselves having to face a new reality.

First of all, returning to work means completely reshuffling family life, or at least that part which involves housework, shopping and other general duties that do tend to fall squarely on the shoulders of the woman during her permanence as homeworker and mum.

For another thing, there may be some qualms on the impending 'new' situation. The woman may feel she is out of touch, and that her period of non-employment may be used against her during her job seeking.

First of all, remember that you are more mature than the up and coming. So that is already a boon to your CV. Secondly, you don't have to shy away from admitting how you took time off to raise your family. Many people wish they could do just that, but cannot because of financial restraints.

In reality, if you're a mother who is planning on staying at home with baby for a while, it is never advisable to shut the working world out completely. It is easy to slip back into obscurity and a laissez-faire attitude, but this can cost you dearly in the near future when circumstances, such as children returning to school, an empty house, a need for an added income or simple boredom, may call on you to return to work. You won't want to feel lost.

Even as a mum and homeworker, do keep abreast of current affairs. If you're asked to do voluntary work, even if it's just addressing envelopes for your village band club, accept the task. And don't be afraid to include it in your CV. Even helping a relative through occasional childminding, or organising and filing your husband's business documents, are 'experiences' that your eventual employers might find relevant.

If you can take up the occasional training course, even if it's just associated with a hobby or craft, that will help you stay tuned to the churnings of the big wide world too.

As many women returnees are discovering, short courses offered by local councils, associations, schools, MCAST, ETC and the like, are all useful assets.

Remember that ultimately, the better qualified you become, the more you enhance your curriculum, and the more experience the better equipped you will be.

Retraining is becoming a buzzword. In a way, the term is a bit of a misnomer because in reality today's training is a far cry from what it was in the past when you were looking for your first job.

Take office workers, typists, secretaries and the like. Many women re-emerge into high-tech offices straight out of a time warp with memories of clanking and clicking typewriters that were too heavy to carry single-handed; carbon copies that infuriated anybody wearing pink nail varnish; and fluid correctors which always seemed to get words messed up anyhow.

Others who originally trained during later years, may remember the electric typewriter which needed fairy light touch typing to succeed and photocopiers that were so expensive to run that they required signed permission to be used.

Even factory workers are discovering how today's machines are computer run, and not all manual jobs are as manual as they used to be. A supermarket cashier will be called upon to have some computing skills alongside normal maths.

So what's changed? Practically everything if one considers that today, the computer runs most businesses.

Basically, retraining involves trying to bridge the gap, being knowledgeable of the going trends, requirements and demands that are placed on somebody holding a job today. New entries are customer care, computer skills, ECDL, knowledge of Internet browsing and telephone skills.

Jonathan M. Dalli, business development executive at Commercial Services Bureau, a recruitment agency, said: "We think the most popular is the ECDL course. I guess returnees feel a need to prove that they are IT literate and many employers do ask for this when they are employing. Other 'empowerment' courses are great motivators, especially with women who have been out of the workforce for a number of years and are not sure of their own self-worth. However, at the end of the day, it all comes down to experience and qualifications."

A willingness to take up training on the job is also seen as a positive sign.

But in reality, does retraining mean instant success in clinching a job?

And do women who have gone through retraining processes find it all worthwhile? According to current statistics, the scales are still tipped drastically with the majority of women being unemployed for a whole host of reasons. As things stand, our country is fast losing out on many of its potential female workers and their undisputedly valuable and irreplaceable skills.

Unfortunately, many women revert to housekeeping for their family, after their high hopes of getting a 'good' job are quashed. One woman in her mid-30s, a mother of two, described how, having been a factory worker before marrying, she decided it was high time to re-educate herself, once both her children were well on their way towards senior school.

Even after taking an Employability Skills for Women Returning to the Workforce course for one year, during which time she learnt more about how to approach the workplace with confidence, she is still unsure that she would want to work after all.

"The course was highly interesting and I feel it has helped me enormously. I followed with another training course. As a trainee I was paid Lm1.40 an hour, which was not bad, considering I was still training. After completing my training I was offered a slight raise to Lm1.79 per hour - this prior to taxes and having NI chopped off. And it is a part-time job.

"I was disappointed, especially since I had great determination and enthusiasm, was willing to learn and be employed, even on a full-time basis if necessary. Now I find that by employing myself even as a part-timer, I risk losing my children's allowance, and then my husband would have to pay extra tax because I'm working.

"I have to pay for travelling expenses - fuel to travel to and from my work place or pay for two bus trips there and two buses back each day; organise to have my kids taken to school and picked up from school by somebody else, possibly paying extra for petrol expenses in that regard as well. When you count it all up, adding to it the hassle of juggling family and work, it is simply not worth it."

What is the average wage a woman returnee can aim to earn per hour? Again Mr Dalli said: "With regard to female applicants with basic qualifications i.e. 'O' level, 'A' level grades and are not graduates, the pay is anywhere between Lm1.75 and Lm3 an hour. It would very much depend on the nature of the business and how much experience these women had accumulated over the years. We recently employed someone in insurance with an 'A' level standard of education at Lm3 per hour. She is working 30 hours per week."

In general, where scales tip in favour of the Lm1.75 average, obviously women complain about low wages compare to cost of living. And this is the number one deterrent that keeps them from seeking employment, with many applicants looking at job opportunities askance.

One bone of contention where wages are concerned comes directly attached to the vacancy advert proper. With copious job descriptions requesting a host of skills and preferences from the employer, indications on how much the wage will amount are minimal.

This is totally discordant with job vacancy notices placed on foreign publications within the EU, such as the UK, where adverts include an average estimate of what the applicant can hope to earn per year, or at least during the first year on that particular job.

This makes a lot of sense as one would have a personal baseline for the lowest possible pay packet one would be willing to work for.

But the Maltese do everything differently. Employers place adverts on papers requesting interested persons to apply for the vacant job. Applicants are usually never acknowledged; the ones who are, get called in for a preliminary interview and while one would assume the pay packet would be divulged therein, this very often does not happen, and interviewees emerge from the interviewing chamber, none the wiser.

If the employer takes a liking to the interviewee, she might be called in for a second interview, and it is then, and only then, that the unfathomable is revealed. For all she knows, the interviewee might not even have bothered interviewing for such a miserly pay packet, which in many instances is not even negotiable.

And still many employers act like the infamous stork, sticking their heads in the sand when one tackles them on the issue of low wages. Low wages? What low wages? Maltese workers have high wages.

Do they? Compared to whom? To workers from Third World countries who are expected to work for less than a lira an hour because the system does not control abuse? How far does the minimum wage take you in actuality?

Is it still a fair wage or are low wage Maltese workers living in the economic situation of 2006 having to put on a straitjacket and adapting to a wage more fitting to the economic situation of a couple of decades ago?

Somebody reading this will probably chime in that in view of the current economic situation, one cannot expect substantial pay rises. And following Budget innovations, there seems to be a slight easing of certain financial constraints which working couples are facing, through the announced wage increases, tax deductions or tax relief measures.

Still, many women believe this is becoming a vicious circle as they find the need to work to keep up with expenses - an insisting presence. Perhaps it is high time more women sound their concern. Retraining is a lifetime opportunity - women should be allowed to enjoy its fruits seriously now.

marika_azzopardi@hotmail.com