Following pressure from its union to improve gender equality at its manufacturing locations in South Korea, Hyundai has hired a grand total of six women. The world’s third-largest automaker by volume, the hires were made as part of a recruitment push that saw 200 new technicians join the company.
Although these six women are not the first to ever work as technicians at the automaker’s South Korean manufacturing facilities, this is the first time that Hyundai has opened the application process up to women.
The South Korean company says that women now account for two percent of its 28,000 technicians in the country, reports Autonews. Previously, women who worked as technicians at Hyundai’s facilities were hired exclusively by subcontractors as temporary employees, before being made permanent, according to a representative from the Korea Metal Workers’ Union.
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The new hires were made as part of its first public recruitment drive in South Korea in a decade, and after it faced pressure from both unions and activists to hire more women. Although just six of the 200 employees it has hired so far are women, a union representative said that it expects more women to join the company soon, as Hyundai intends to add 500 new technician roles in all.
Hardly the first time that Hyundai’s employment practices have come under scrutiny, in the U.S. its suppliers, some of which are subsidiaries of the Hyundai Group, which also owns Kia and Genesis, were found to be employing minors in the United States.
Although the automaker has vowed to distance itself from the suppliers and hiring companies that allowed children as young as 12 to work in plants in the Southern U.S., the allegations continued after initial reports made the practice public.
