A DECLINE in women’s workforce participation has sparked calls for urgent action on improving gender diversity in non-female traditional roles across the resource industry.
Latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has revealed a concerning drop in the number of women working in the resource industry over the past 12 months, falling from 15.5% of the total resource workforce in the May quarter 2013 to 13.99% in 2014.
In total employee numbers, this decline sees 37,000 women now working across Australia’s mining, oil and gas sectors – about 3,400 less than 12 months ago.
Breaking the statistics into sub-sectors, the poorest performers are the ‘coal mining’ and ‘exploration and other support services’ categories. Coal mining recruited 3,400 men in the past quarter, but lost 1,200 women.
This paradoxical growth was worse in exploration and other support services, where the sector lost 1,900 women from its workforce but gained 7,100 men during the past three months.
The strongest performing sector in terms of female workforce participation was ‘oil and gas extraction’, which incredibly saw women’s representation increase from 12.8% of its workforce in February 2014 to 23.5% just three months later (3,400 women employees to now 6,500).
With overall resource industry female participation going backwards in 2013-14, AREEA’s national gender diversity initiative the Australian Women in Resources Alliance (AWRA) has called employers to action.
“The resource industry has moved in leaps and bounds to break down barriers to female participation, including greater engagement of women talent pools, focussed recruitment efforts and developing the existing female talent pipeline,” AREEA executive director, industry services, Tara Diamond says.
“However, despite strong progress in the oil and gas extraction sector’s workforce composition, the overall decline in female participation shows resource employers still face significant challenges in attracting, recruiting and retaining women.
“This is particularly prevalent in those sub-sectors where the vast majority of the workforce is site-based and performing occupations not traditionally attractive to women – such as coal mining, metal ore extraction and exploration activities.”
Ms Diamond says increased engagement and support of the resource industry’s executive leaders has been one of the strongest outcomes of AWRA’s initiatives and campaigns.
“It is now time for our industry to draw on the strong support we have from our leadership teams to deliver results in these areas in need of urgent attention,” she says.
“As more mega-resource projects make the transition from the labour-intensive construction phase into long-term production, our sector’s workforce composition is evolving at a rapid pace.
“To ensure we can capitalise on the sourcing opportunities women have to offer, we must act now to promote and support women’s careers in the mining, oil and gas sectors.”
There are also many shining examples of women succeeding in front-line operational and technical careers, says Ms Diamond, such as general manager of FMG’s Cloudbreak Mine, Julie Shuttleworth.
In recognition of her activities in promoting women’s participation in the resource industry, Ms Shuttleworth this year took out the mining category in the 2014 Women in Industry Awards and was named one of Women in Mining’s Top 100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining.
“The resource industry is brimming with champions of women’s participation in the resource industry and serve to highlight not just the opportunities available to women, but also what women can achieve,” Ms Diamond says.
“Already, resource industry employers have demonstrated commitment to addressing the gender balance.
“Greater commitment from all stakeholders to proven initiatives like AWRA is critical to maintaining this momentum and promoting and supporting women’s resource careers.”
For more information about AWRA, click here.
For the latest statistics from the ABS, click here.
