ENERGY:Oil Industry Turns to Women in Hour of Need.
Facing one of
its worst crises in a generation, the oil industry is trying to open up - to
women.
Even when oil
was selling at above $100 a barrel, most of the industry's top executives said
they struggled to find and retain young talent.
Year after year,
it was cited as one of the biggest problems for the industry - one of the best
paying in the world - during
annual gatherings of its top brass on the
sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the Swiss Alpine resort of
Davos.
But never the
issue of gender inequality, which has also been a major topic for discussion at
Davos for several years and is once again high on the agenda in 2016.
"Men still
run the world ... I'm not sure it's going that well," Facebook (FB $98.50)
Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, who has campaigned for greater
equality, told a WEF panel on Wednesday.
As the oil
industry's gloss is fading further with a collapse of oil prices to the lowest
levels in more than a decade, executives realise something needs to change to
widen the talent pool.
The oil and gas
industry has the lowest representation of female professionals among all
employers and ranks below technology, according to documents prepared for the
executives at Davos this week and seen by Reuters.
Among oil companies
there are no women at CEO level and only 7-11 percent are women at board and
senior executive levels.
"Almost
every country in the world has less than five percent of its top companies run
by women, including the United States and every country in Europe,"
Facebook's Sandberg said.
"That means
we are not using the full talents of the population, that means when it comes
to making the decisions that are impacting our world, women are not at those
tables where decisions are made."
The Davos energy
governors, who include the heads of companies such as BP (BP $30.35) , Royal
Dutch Shell (RYDAF $20.15) , Eni and Total (TOTB.F $39.79) , will be working on
a first declaration of intent to close the gender gap, according to the
documents.
It will also set
out principles to encourage women to join oil companies, especially in
technical and managerial roles.
The principles
will range from making CEOs personally responsible for achieving gender
diversity to supporting women during the early years of science, technology or
engineering studies, where boys traditionally dominate, according to the
documents.
But they add
that a negative perception might keep spooking talent in general - with the oil
industry generally perceived as "a sunset industry with little job
security and huge market fluctuations".
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