Ranks of women working at Cameco ‘disappointing’

Canada’s largest uranium mining company employs almost 100 fewer women than it did four years ago, and has admitted that the number and percentage of women that make up its workforce has been on the decline since 2012 — a fact its chief corporate officer said is concerning.

Cameco Corp., which is based in Saskatoon and operates two mines and a mill in northern Saskatchewan, on Monday reported that at the end of last year 697 of its 2,963 employees, or 23.5 per cent of its workforce, were women. By comparison, the company said, four years earlier 796 of its 3,239 workers were women — 24.6 per cent.

“It is disappointing … I think we can do more and, as we become more aware of the challenges that are there, I think we can do more to increase that number,” said Alice Wong, a 30-year veteran of the mining industry who was appointed one of Cameco’s senior vice-presidents in 2011. She remains the only woman on its executive team.

Wong attributed Cameco’s struggle to increase the percentage of women in its workforce to a range of factors, including the remoteness of its operations — the mines in northern Saskatchewan are accessible only by air, and employees work a two-weeks-in, two-weeksout schedule — as well as the need to increase the number of women interested in the mining sector.

The company has a workforce diversity improvement plan in place — which includes policy and systems reviews, unconscious bias training, outreach and providing workers with protective equipment designed for women, according to its latest sustainable development report — but market forces will make increasing the percentage difficult, Wong said.

Cameco has spent more than a year cutting costs in response to a persistently weak uranium market. The company has closed one of its Saskatchewan mines, slashed its corporate workforce and taken other steps to reduce its production costs by almost 25 per cent.

“Given the realities that we have right now facing us on the economic side, and our challenges with the market, I think that we would like to see (the percentage of women in the workforce) go up, but we certainly at this point would like to maintain the average,” Wong said.

“That’s just the cold reality of where we are in this market.”

While mining is far from the only sector struggling to attract women, the fact that diversity is being discussed suggests there is a recognition within the industry that diversity and representation are important, according to a board member of the advocacy group Women in Mining and Women in Nuclear Saskatchewan (WIM/ WIN).

“Certainly, what I see right now is this real desire to make change,” said Sara Harrison, who has spent 15 years in the mining business, most recently with BHP Billiton, and joined WIM/WIN three years ago to try to make a difference. Harrison spoke in general terms about diversity in Saskatchewan’s mining business.

That change will likely involve companies examining their own hiring strategies and workplace culture — BHP, for example, has pledged to achieve gender parity by 2025 — but also parents and the education system working to break down gender stereotypes and encourage young women to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics, Harrison said.

“There’s always going to be more that can be done — it is such a difficult challenge, and it’s going to be a long road, and I think we have to recognize that it’s not just going to be a couple quick fixes that happen overnight.”