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Most of the current migration of women to the European Union is now employment-oriented. Nevertheless, it is widely recognized that this population of women faces a “double disadvantage” in the labor market, as women and as migrants.

A study conducted by Microsoft among 530 immigrant women in 5 EU countries identified how access to IT is critical to improving social and economic status and finding a job. About a third of the immigrant women have basic computer and Internet skills, 32% have intermediate computer skills and 22% have intermediate Internet skills. Slightly over 20% of the women reported no e-skills at all.

Digital skills are particularly valued by native-born women (76%) and less by immigrant women (59%), reflecting their different backgrounds. In this sample, 306 women reported attending 612 training courses. Only one sixth of the sample (58 women) did not participate in any training courses.

Overall, the most popular area of training was e-skills (43%, including basic and advanced levels). The other two were equally popular: host-country language (30%) and vocational training (27%).

Problems cited by respondents in their new environment include: language-learning, employment issues, social marginalization, and bureaucratic procedures. The suggestions they offered tend to focus on social inclusion, and on the quality of public and nonprofit services and employment centers. Developing e-skills, especially in combination with the training experience itself, more than by acquiring basic digital competences, but also helping to expand their social networks and overcoming language barriers through e-learning, is a most significant factor in finding employment.

Sensationnelles 2010 is a public campaign comprising 5 video interviews of exceptional women, either scientists or champions of women in science and research, launched by the French TV channel TV5 Monde (equivalent of BBC World) in partnership with Global Contact headed by Claudine Schmuck. It aims at supplying young generations of women with powerful and motivating examples of women role models.

Global Contact has conducted extensive research on this topic for Orange, and published the results in a survey (Mutationnelles 09) which demonstrates that due to lack of information and convincing examples young women are disadvantaged when they make their choices in fields of study and area of specializations.

Hence, WIL through its President Thaima Samman as well as Luisa Prista, Head of Unit Scientific Culture and Gender Issues, Directorate-General Research, European Commission are in the spotlight as 2 of the 5 interviewed women. Thaima’s interview points out the key issues the WIL network addresses so as to give high-profile women the needed resources to reach top leadership positions. Luisa Prista shared the view of the Commission on ways to boost the worrying lower numbers of young people following science studies.

Cécile Dubrovin, Thales Microwave and Imaging Subsystems Bids and Programmes Director, Jehanne Savi, Head of IT Delivery for France Telecom Orange, Anne Bouverot, Executive Vice President, Mobile Consumer Services France Telecom Orange, and Marie-Pierre de Bethune, Vice-President Scientific Affairs Tibotec, have also contributed by offering their inspiring written testimonies (in French) as women who have followed a career in technical sectors, so as to encourage young women who aspire to become scientists to share their opinions and ideas and create their own supportive network.

More testimonials will help to strengthen the effectiveness of this action!

To support it, contact Claudine Schmuck for assistance in drafting your testimonial in French. Looking forward to hearing from you!

INSEAD launched the book “Top Talent: Keeping Performance Up When Business is Down” by Sylvia Ann Hewlett, based on a research on the impact of the down cycle over top talent ran in a dozen top companies.

Mary Honeyball MEP and new WIL member highlighted the WIL network on her official blog, encouraging our growth and actions to promote women in leadership.

Congratulations to Deb Leary whose company has won a prestigious UK award for innovation.

Forensic Pathways has joined its forces with the Cambridgeshire Police to put in place a Phone Analyser Platform, which not only reduced costs, but also enabled the police to discover a wide range of critical information about active criminals and terrorists and enhance public security.

UK is renowned for the pro-entrepreneurship policies the government has put in place, but as in most of the EU Member States, the gender-related data is still insufficient to measure the opportunities that lay for women. As rebuilding the economy asks for all categories to participate to it, Women's Enterprise Task Force and Delta Economics have released two different reports on the added economic value of women led businesses, bringing recommendations to the UK government and respectively to all interested actors.

Challenges and Opportunities for Growth and Sustainability (COGS). DELTA ECONOMICS

Delta Economics has surveyed 2120 UK entrepreneurs that run businesses with a life between 2 and 10 years. Although women lead only 16% of them, the survey shows clear differences between them and the men-led ones, in terms of turnover and growth options.

Most of the companies ran by women are in retail or services, sectors that were hardly hit by the crisis. Consequently, the overall turnover of these businesses has dropped by 48% compared to their 2008 status. The men-led businesses, spread in various sectors, have overall felt a drop of just 14.4% in turnover. To recover the losses, companies need to invest in new products or services, in R&D, in marketing etc. Remarkably, there are not high differences with respect to where entrepreneurs search for these investments.

However, the surveyed women entrepreneurs have a higher confidence in external support (networking, agencies, professional advice) than men, with up to 4 times more trust in governmental financial aid, yet relatively fews access it. At the same time, 40.8% of women who run high growth businesses have either post-graduate or graduate qualifications compared to 32.4% of men. These are patterns on which policy makers can build new incentives to boost the number of female entrepreneurs and to help women enter into new sectors. The report can be accessed here.

Greater Return on Women's Enterprise (GROWE). WOMEN'S ENTERPRISE TASKFORCE

Women's Enterprise Taskforce (WETF) released a report with recommendations for the UK government to support female entrepreneurship based on the high contribution of these businesses to the GROSS Value Add (GVA). Currently, UK women-led businesses have a turnover of £130bn and bring £70bn in GVA. Other 150,000 UK businesses could emerge yearly if women started businesses at the same rate as men. The report puts together a complex set of data to make recommendations on 5 pillars: gender-data gathering, business support, business financing, public procurement and awareness raise.

The lack of gender-disaggregated data determined the authors to ask for gathering gender data through the VAT-tax form or other similar governmental financial tools. There are some other issues at stake. Lack of information holds back many women from becoming entrepreneurs. WETF has created regional entrepreneurship centres for women in the past 2 years as a solution. Such initiatives, along with including gender diversity objectives into state agencies strategies, can convince women who risk unemployment in the downturn to become self-employed.

The COGS report showed that women have a high trust in networks and agencies. However, the GROWE report discovered that women tend to finance their business through bank loans in a higher degree than men and take less into consideration private equities or business angels. As new business models emerge in high tech sectors, renewable energies etc., diversifying capital access is necessary. That is why WETF encourages successful women entrepreneurs to become business angels and coach in turn other women as well as to replicate funds such as ASPIRE, especially created for women's start ups.

Another important issue is that two thirds of SMEs do not participate in public tenders mainly due to lack of trust and only 3% of UK women-led businesses gain public contracts. WETF called for easing the procurement process for SMEs in order to diminish any gender discrepancies in accessing public contracts.

To ensure the sustainability of such actions, attitudes need to change as well. To start with, WETF recommends industry bodies to have women in their boards. This way, both government, through policy incentives, and the private sector through diversity programs can support the creation of new businesses, jobs and growth. The report is available here.

Global Women Inventors and Innovators Network, led by one of our members, Bola Olabisi, will recognize during this meeting women who have made an outstanding contribution to innovation.

The EU Swedish Presidency will host a conference on the Small Business Act (Oct 5 –6) to exchange best practices on issues such as access to public procurement for SMEs,cash flow for business growth, women’s entrepreneurship or fostering innovation. Between October 7 and 9, the Enterprise Europe Network, a network of 600 service organizations, is holding a conference to help SMEs find business contacts throughoutthe world.

The club for women entrepreneurs Feminin Pluriel and the business magazine for women L/ONTOP organized a roundtable that brought together founders of women’s networks who are either activating in France or all over Europe. Three WiL members, Aude de Thuin, Founder of Women’s Forum, Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, founder of the European Professional Women Network, and Thaima Samman described their work to an audience of more than 300 active women. Other networks represented in the meeting were Accent Sur Elles or Action de Femme.

Highlighting the French members of the network, the magazine L/ONTOP published an interview with Thaima Samman on the Women in Leadership initiative. The interview revolves around the network’s vision of empowering young women in research and technology and its capacity to liaise leading women from the public and private sector with the European political and administrative elite. Click here for the article.