The ‘Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply’ sector is the only economy sector which registered a decrease in female workers between 2011 and 2016, where the number of female workers decreased by 137, from 160 female workers in 2011 to 23 at the end of 2016.

The list of women in the workforce, both full-time and part-time, presented in Parliament by Minister for Education Evarist Bartolo, presents the amount of women in various NACE (Nomenclature of Economic Activities) groups between 2011 till today. NACE is the European statistical classification of economic activities.

Out of the 20 groups, the ‘Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply’ sector was the only one to experience a decrease in women workers. Of the 19 groups which experienced an increase, the ‘Administrative and support service activities’ and ‘Education’ sectors registered the highest increase, with an increase of 3,237 and 2,880 respectively.

In total, the number of women in the workforce increased by 32% in these years, according to Bartolo. The figures showed that whilst 67,960 women were working in 2011, 89,722 women were working in 2016.

The group with the highest registered amount of female workers was the ‘Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles’ group, with 13,905 employees. ‘Education’ and ‘Human health and social work activities’ are the groups with the second and third highest number of female employees, with 13,202 and 11,227 respectively.

The groups with the lowest numbers of female workers in 2016 were noted to be the following: Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (23 female workers), Mining and quarrying (39 female workers) and ‘Activities of households as employers; undifferentiated goods-and services-producing activities of households for own use’ (136 female workers).