CEO DATELINE — API seeks to boost women in industry
CEO DATELINE — API seeks to boost women in industry
- April 24, 2018 |
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WILLIAM EHART
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Women comprise only a fraction of the oil and natural gas workforce, but the American Petroleum Institute is trying to encourage more to join the industry.
An executive from the trade group visited Doňa Ana Community College—part of the New Mexico State University system—in Las Cruces, N.M., last week to appeal to potential new employees for the sector, especially women, according to the NMSU student newspaper. https://bit.ly/2HXyhMb
Tara Anderson, director of external mobilization at API, told the mostly female students in attendance the industry needs a lot more workers, and not all wearing hard hats.
"In the next 10 years or so, about 50 percent of our workforce is going to retire," Anderson said, according to the paper. "That equates to about 1.9 million job opportunities by the year 2035."
"[This] event really specialized on women because we know of the 1.9 million job opportunities 16 percent will go to women. That's a problem," Anderson said.
She told students there are a lot of misconceptions about working in the industry.
"(People) think that if you work in oil and gas that means that you have to be a petroleum engineer, or you need to be dangling off a rig in the Gulf of Mexico wearing a hard hat," Anderson said. "This is not the case." Employees also are needed in human resources, public outreach and commodity marketing, among other specialties.
Anderson told CEO Update that API did extensive research on workforce demographics, as well as the attributes women seek most in a job, in 2014. Anderson and her staff of seven have since presented at high schools, colleges and events for women and girls (including Girl Scout events), sharing the research and corresponding facts about the industry.
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