Securing gender, ethnic and age equality
Working environmentVKG seeks to secure equal opportunities for its current and future employees. A large percentage of VKG employees have extensive working experience and come from numerous regions of the former Soviet Union. In 2009, the concern employed people of approx. ten different ethnic origins. Currently, representatives of 20 different ethnic backgrounds are employed at the company. According to the data of 2009, the biggest ethnic staff segments were composed of the following:
- Russians – 967 employees (79.2 %)
- Estonians – 124 employees (10.16 %)
- Belarusians – 52 employees (4.6 %)
- Ukrainians – 39 employees (3.19 %)
Among the other ethnicities employed by the concern there are Armenians, Bashkirs, Bulgarians, Dargwas, Karelians, Koreans, Latvians, Lithuanians, Moldavians, Mordvins, Poles, Germans, Finns, Tatars, Chuvash and Uzbeks, who comprise a total of over 3% of the staff.
VKG aims to secure gender equality. However, the specifics of the processing industry also need to be considered. In 2008, VKG employed 1,159 people (the average number of 2009 employees was 1,312), 57% of who were male and 43% female. Until 2009, female workers were prohibited from working as miners, which is why female employment in this profession was also at the lowest level in 2010.
Furthermore, there are several jobs among working specialities where traditionally male and not female workers are employed in Estonia (mechanics, plumbers). At the same time, the portion of female employees has been increased due to jobs in auxiliary services (bookkeeping, assistance, management of public relations, personnel service).
| 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | |
| Rate of male employees | 68.3% | 69.8% | 70.2% | 61.3% |
| Rate of female employees | 61.5% | 62.2% | 62.5% | 59.3% |
| Difference | 6.8% | 7.6% | 7.7% | 2.0% |
Share of employed people among the able-bodied population of Estonia The tables illustrate the employment rate of male and female employees and the inequalities between them in the years from 2006 to 2009. Similar to the division of the VKG labour force, men in Estonia have traditionally been employed more than women, the difference being 7.7 % in favour of male employees. In the same way, men have been more widely employed in Ida-Virumaa, exceeding the female labour force by 13.3 %.
Share of employed people in Ida-Virumaa
| 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | |
| Rate of male employees | 62.3 | 64.2 | 61.2 | 52.6 |
| Rate of female employees | 51.9 | 50.9 | 48.1 | 48.6 |
| Difference | 10.4% | 13.3% | 13.1% | 4.0% |
The enterprise indirectly encourages gender equality by distributing its scholarships: 5 student grants of those awarded at the Virumaa College of Tallinn University of Technology in 2009 were distributed to female and 3 to male students. Thereby, VKG hopes to promote the technical professions among both male and female students. VKG offers employment to people of different ages. The youngest employee at VKG is 19, and the eldest is 72 years old. A large majority of the concern’s staff belongs to the 25-49 age group, i.e. 54.3 % of the manpower and 33.4% are over 50 years old. Similar figures are prevalent throughout Estonia.
Distribution of employees according to age at VKG and in Estonia
| Below 24 | 25-49 years old | Over 50 | |
| Employment rate according to age in Estonia in 2009 |
5.6 % | 61.1 % | 33.4 % |
| Employment rate according to age at VKG | 7.4% | 54.3 | 38.3 |
