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Women enter skilled trades as metro Atlanta faces growing demand for workers
By Brian Unger
CBS Atlanta
Inside a welding booth, a four-year degree can only get you so far. You can either do this expertly, or you can’t. And 25-year-old JhiKayla Mathis can.
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At Tulsa Welding School’s Atlanta campus, President Tamekia Morris is betting on women like Mathis — a pool of talent the skilled trades have largely overlooked.
“If we really want to talk about closing this gap and the shortage in the workforce, in the skilled trades, we have to tap into the untapped market, which are women,” Morris said.
Women currently make up about 16% of the student body at the Atlanta campus, according to Morris. Nationally, the gap is much larger. Women accounted for just 4.3% of construction trade workers in 2025, according to an analysis of federal Current Population Survey data by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Women represented just 3.1% of carpenters, 3.1% of plumbers, pipe fitters and steamfitters, and 3.5% of electricians.