Steps for promoting women
In the business year 2024/25, the percentage of female executives1 was 14.4%, and is therefore largely unchanged over the previous business year (14.5%). One woman has been appointed to a divisional management position since the business year 2013/14. Since April 1, 2024, one woman is represented on the Management Board of voestalpine AG.
As part of internal leadership development efforts, great importance is placed on continuing to increase the number of female participants. The Group thus takes care to ensure that women are represented at each stage of the Leadership Development Program (“value:program”). With the Group’s self-imposed commitment to boost the employment of women in all of the Group’s divisions, the share of women in voestalpine’s three stage executive development program (pre-stage, stage 1, stage 2: total of 262 female and male participants) in the business year 2024/25 was 26.3%. The decline over the previous year (32.7%) is due to the temporary increase in the number of individual stages.
Overall, the percentage of women in the voestalpine Group in the business year 2024/25 was 16.4% (previous year: 16%). There are industry-specific, historical, and cultural reasons for this percentage—which remains low compared with other industries. In the public’s consciousness, the image of a steel and technology Group still conforms to the image of heavy industry, with the result that broad-based recruitment of female employees is a challenging undertaking. Nonetheless, the percentage of women in the voestalpine Group among salaried employees up to the age of 30 is now around 37.2%. Despite all our efforts, however, women still only account for a mere 10.5% of waged workers.
There is a general desire to implement suitable measures to sustainably increase the proportion of women in the Group at all levels, in particular the proportion of women in management positions from the current 14.4% to 18% by 2030. These measures include a number of activities, some of which are country specific, e.g., participation in the “Girls’ Day,” the specific advancement of women in technical trades requiring apprenticeships, and/or boosting the hiring of female graduates of technical schools and universities. In addition, the establishment and expansion of in-house childcare facilities and/or collaborations with external facilities is being accelerated. Such facilities and partnerships already exist at many of the Group’s locations. A kindergarten with 24-hour care was opened at the Linz, Austria, location in the business year 2023/24. These offerings are supplemented by flexible work and shift models; enhanced technical training geared to women; upskilling opportunities for apprentices and assistants; mentoring programs; special health programs; guidance on equality and non-discrimination; and so forth. As a result of these efforts, by now women are also employed in leadership positions in the company’s traditionally male-dominated, technical areas. Women also hold executive positions in the financial, legal, strategic, communications, and human resources departments in a number of Group companies.
As part of the annual Human Resources Report, data on the percentage of women in executive positions is regularly collected and analyzed based on qualifications and training programs for the purpose of monitoring the long-term impact of all measures.
1 The basis of the calculation is the number of employees (headcount).