In another sign that the business world and economy are heading even further in the wrong direction, it appears that there are fewer and fewer female executives in Australia.
In fact, based on a census taken by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (perhaps you might be more familiar with its EOWA appellation?), the number of female executives in Australia has actually decreased by 2% over the past two years.
OK, I'll be the first to admit. I snickered when I read that factoid in the Sydney Morning Herald. OK, forgive me, but I got up at 5am and spent 10 hours continuous at my desk trying to catch up from a humdinger of a cold. But I quickly stopped laughing when I read a little further into the Herald's article. Did you know that of 1,700 executive positions in companies listed on the ASX200, there were only 182 women?
That paltry number is just a little over 7%! Keep in mind that an executive isn't necessarily a CEO, but perhaps a director, vice-president, etc. The number of chief executives is - four.
Mix the current state of the economy and downsizing in management teams, along with the fact that women face a number of challenges and prejudices that us lads don't have to worry about, and it's a bad time to be a lady exec (or want to be one) in Australia.
