The Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia (CME) welcomes the State Government’s 2015 Women’s Report Card.
The Report Card shows an ongoing focus on improving gender equality in the workplace is required across the economy, as females in leadership roles are underrepresented.
CME chief executive Reg Howard-Smith said increasing female participation was a vital lever to increasing thought diversity, productivity and ensuring ongoing access to an appropriately skilled workforce.
“The Western Australian resources sector has made some headway in many measures of diversity but there is still significant progress needed,” Mr Howard-Smith said.
“Our recent Diversity in the Western Australian Resources Sector survey found female participation in the sector has decreased by 1 per cent to 17.8 per cent between 2013 and 2015. This is in the context of significant industry effort to improve its participation of women. Accordingly, CME is currently investigating different ways of addressing this issue.”
There are some positive indicators and challenges highlighted in the Women’s Report Card and in CME’s research.
“It is now, in challenging times, we need to ensure the sector continues to focus on the issue of diversity. CME and the Western Australian resources industry will examine how we can achieve greater participation of women in the industry and also see greater numbers of women progress through to leadership ranks,” Mr Howard-Smith said.
