As the world cel­e­brates In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day, it is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­flect on the strides made to­ward gen­der equal­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly in tra­di­tion­al­ly male-dom­i­nat­ed in­dus­tries like the ex­trac­tive sec­tor. In 2023, the Ex­trac­tive In­dus­tries Trans­paren­cy Ini­tia­tive (EITI) strength­ened its com­mit­ment to gen­der in­clu­sion by in­tro­duc­ing ad­di­tion­al gen­der-spe­cif­ic pro­vi­sions in­to the EITI Stan­dard.

In align­ment with EITI Re­quire­ment 6.3(d), the Trinidad and To­ba­go Ex­trac­tive In­dus­tries Trans­paren­cy Ini­tia­tive (TTEITI) has en­hanced gen­der da­ta trans­paren­cy, reaf­firm­ing its ded­i­ca­tion to in­clu­siv­i­ty.

No­tably, the TTEITI Steer­ing Com­mit­tee con­sists of 14 men and 14 women—en­sur­ing equal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. The fol­low­ing in­sights from TTEITI’s lat­est State of the Ex­trac­tive Sec­tors re­port, launched in Feb­ru­ary, high­light key trends in gen­der di­ver­si­ty with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ex­trac­tive sec­tor.

Em­ploy­ment in the ex­trac­tive sec­tor

Gen­der di­ver­si­ty in the ex­trac­tives sec­tor re­mains a key pri­or­i­ty for both TTEITI and the EITI glob­al­ly. Ac­cord­ing to da­ta from the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice, as of the end of 2023, Trinidad and To­ba­go had a to­tal work­force of 602,400 in­di­vid­u­als. The en­er­gy sec­tor, in­clud­ing min­ing and quar­ry­ing, ac­count­ed for 14,500 em­ploy­ees, rep­re­sent­ing 2.4 per cent of to­tal em­ploy­ment. Of these, 11,900 were men, while 2,600 were women rep­re­sent­ing an in­crease of fe­male em­ploy­ment in 2023 (see Fig­ure 1). De­spite over­all job growth, em­ploy­ment in the en­er­gy sec­tor de­clined slight­ly from 15,500 in 2022 to 14,500 in 2023, rep­re­sent­ing a re­duc­tion of 1,000 jobs (see Fig­ure 2).

Fig­ure 1: En­er­gy Sec­tor Em­ploy­ment by Gen­der 2023

Fig­ure 2: To­tal Em­ploy­ment vs En­er­gy Sec­tor Em­ploy­ment 2023

For the State of the Ex­trac­tive Sec­tors Re­port 2024, the in­de­pen­dent au­di­tor (IA) en­hanced the re­port­ing tem­plate for oil, gas, and min­ing com­pa­nies by in­cor­po­rat­ing a sec­tion ded­i­cat­ed to work­force da­ta. This sec­tion re­quired com­pa­nies to dis­close em­ploy­ment fig­ures dis­ag­gre­gat­ed by gen­der and lev­el of se­nior­i­ty, as well as in­for­ma­tion on em­ploy­ees with dis­abil­i­ties. A to­tal of 15 com­pa­nies par­tic­i­pat­ed in this re­port­ing ex­er­cise, in­clud­ing 11 from the oil and gas sec­tor and 4 from the min­ing sec­tor. Many of the re­port­ing com­pa­nies do not have any em­ploy­ees as they are sub­sidiaries of larg­er groups, and all the group’s staff are em­ployed by one sub­sidiary in the group. These em­ploy­ees then al­lo­cate the time that they spend sup­port­ing the oth­er sub­sidiaries op­er­at­ing in Trinidad & To­ba­go and record this on timesheets.

The 15 com­pa­nies re­port­ed to­tal em­ploy­ees of 3,142 peo­ple (2,677 in the oil and gas sec­tor and 465 in the min­ing sec­tor). The num­ber of em­ploy­ees is much low­er than the fig­ures giv­en above from the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice, as the da­ta for oil and gas cov­ers on­ly the ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion part of the en­er­gy sec­tor and does not in­clude em­ploy­ees of com­pa­nies en­gaged in the mid­stream and down­stream sec­tor, nor in the sup­ply of goods and ser­vices to the en­er­gy sec­tor.

Of this to­tal, al­most 70 per cent were male and 30 per cent fe­male. In terms of man­age­ment lev­el, 221 were top man­age­ment, 585 mid­dle man­age­ment and low­er lev­el em­ploy­ees.

Ta­ble 1: Em­ploy­ment Gen­der Da­ta 2021

In top man­age­ment, 83.7 per cent were T&T na­tion­als, with T&T men oc­cu­py­ing just un­der half of top man­age­ment po­si­tions (49.3 per cent). Women com­prised just over 35 per cent of top man­age­ment staff (the bulk of whom were T&T na­tion­als) and 15 per cent were male ex­pa­tri­ates. In mid­dle man­age­ment, 97.4 per cent were T&T na­tion­als. Men com­prised al­most 65 per cent of the to­tal and women near­ly 33 per cent. T&T na­tion­als made up more than 99 per cent of low­er-lev­el em­ploy­ees and the gen­der split was 70 per cent men and 30 per cent women.

Fig­ure 3: Gen­der split by lev­el of man­age­ment

Women in lead­er­ship roles T&T’s en­er­gy sec­tor

In the lo­cal en­er­gy sec­tor, there are sev­er­al women in key lead­er­ship po­si­tions at var­i­ous or­gan­i­sa­tions. The list be­low high­lights a few in­di­vid­u­als:

Pene­lope Brad­shaw-Niles – per­ma­nent sec­re­tary Min­istry of En­er­gy

Chris­tine Sa­hadeo – di­rec­tor, Her­itage & Mem­ber of the Tax Ap­peal Board of Trinidad & To­ba­go

In­grid Lashe­ly, chair, Na­tion­al En­ter­pris­es Ltd and Di­rec­tor of Pheonix Park Gas Proces­sors Lim­it­ed

Pa­tri­cia King, chief op­er­at­ing of­fi­cer, Her­itage

Giselle Thomp­son- vice pres­i­dent of Cor­po­rate Af­fairs bpTT

Haf­sah Ali – gen­er­al man­ag­er, Up­stream, STTL

Can­dice Clarke-Sal­loum – coun­try chair, Eng­lish Caribbean, and Head Cor­po­rate Re­la­tions, Shell T&T

Ane­sha Sadar – gen­er­al man­ag­er, Busi­ness Trans­for­ma­tion, STTL

Louise Poy Wing- se­nior state coun­sel MEEI

Car­la Noel-Mendez - cor­po­rate af­fairs man­ag­er BHP (now Wood­side)

So­raya Khan- fi­nance man­ag­er BHP (now Wood­side)

Ver­li­er Quan Vie – vice pres­i­dent Com­mer­cial NGC

Mitzi St Rose – Man­ag­er En­er­gy Mar­ket­ing and Trad­ing NGC

Con­clu­sion

On this In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day, we cel­e­brate the strides made to­ward gen­der equal­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ex­trac­tive sec­tor while ac­knowl­edg­ing the work that re­mains. Bridg­ing the gen­der gap re­quires a col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach—bring­ing to­geth­er gov­ern­ment, in­dus­try lead­ers, and civ­il so­ci­ety to cre­ate more in­clu­sive poli­cies and op­por­tu­ni­ties for women. By ad­vanc­ing trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty, TTEITI con­tin­ues to play a role in fos­ter­ing di­a­logue on key en­er­gy sec­tor is­sues, in­clud­ing gen­der di­ver­si­ty.