We thought that real estate is in the Jurassic Park when it comes to diversity, especially the shortage of women in the professional and executive real estate ranks. Well, this morning I was rather surprised to read in the Wall Street Journal that while women make up more than half of the students in US colleges and universities, only two out of every ten degrees received in sciences are to women. These statistics exist when high-paying jobs in areas of expertise such as computer coding and mechanical engineering are going unfilled.
According to the Labor Department, there will be 510,900 engineering job opening along with 426,900 software development jobs without enough takers. I thought that these stats make real estate look good. Not so, because universities are stepping up their focus on attracting more women into these fields, generally with significant success.
There is a lesson here: the real estate industry needs to press higher education to step-up its focus on attracting more women into real estate programs. Our track record of attracting and retaining women in the real estate workforce is not good, so we need a serious commitment on all fronts to recruit and retain. This really is science 101.