Massive potash mine being built in Saskatchewan breaks new ground for women – by Amanda Stephenson (Canadian Press/Toronto Star – November 19, 2023)

https://www.thestar.com/

BHP’s Sask. mine breaking new ground for women

In July of this year, mining giant BHP announced a company first. More than 14,000 kilometres away from its Melbourne, Australia headquarters, BHP said it had achieved its “gender balance” target for its local workforce in Saskatchewan.

With women making up more than 43 per cent of the company’s workforce at its Jansen potash mine project as well as its Saskatoon corporate office, the province became the first BHP location in the world to reach a goal set back in 2016.

That was when the Australian multinational announced its aim to achieve gender balance — defined by the company as a minimum of 40 per cent women and 40 per cent men — across its global workforce by the end of 2025.

BHP had good reason to hail its Saskatchewan achievement, which was no small feat in an industry where the typical worker has long been a burly hard-hatted man. As recently as 2019 in Canada, federal government statistics showed just 14 per cent of this country’s mining sector workforce were women.

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