BHP Billiton aims for half of workforce to be women by 2025
The world's largest mining company has set an ambitious new target for gender parity and will aim for women to comprise half of its workforce for 2025.
BHP Billiton (BHP) will announce the new goal at its annual general meeting in London today. At present, 17 per cent of the FTSE 100 miner's 65,000 employees are women.
Read more: SolGold shares jump as it knocks back BHP Billiton offer
At the meeting, the group will also discuss its Samarco iron ore mine with shareholders. Output at the Brazilian joint venture with Vale has been halted since a dam burst last November, destroying the nearby village of Bento Rodrigues and killing 19 people.
City PM understands no further decisions have been made yet about restarting production at the site.
Read more: BHP Billiton chief has bonus axed after Samarco disaster and profit plummet
In an operational review released yesterday, Melbourne-based BHP warned that production at its Olympic Dam copper mine was under review after the South Australia project was hit by power blackouts.
Reporting on its third quarter operational performance, BHP said that despite this hiccup, group production and unit cost guidance remained unchanged for the 2017 financial year.