Women form the majority of Orion’s total workforce: approximately 64 per cent of the  total is women, and the percentage has remained similar for several years. The proportion of men and women is almost 50-50 in blue collars. The absolute and relative number of women is the highest among white collars. Even among exempts, clearly over 60 per cent of employees are women.

Orion Diagnostica represents the highest proportion of women with 72 per cent of employees being women. One-fourth of them work as laboratory technicians.

The tables turn in Fermion, where 74 per cent of employees were men in 2009. Male employees dominate the production processes in particular as 95 per cent of Fermion’s process workers are men. The most common job title is process operator, and held by men only. At Fermion, women tend to work in laboratories and offices.

A clear majority of employees in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals and diagnostic products are women. Most common titles among them are packer and line operator. In quality assurance, laboratory technician is the most common title. Orion employs close to 140 laboratory technicians and most of them are women.  

R&D is another area dominated by women. Close to 20 per cent of all Orion employees work in R&D, and approximately 75 per cent of them are women. Most common titles are research scientist and research assistant.

In sales, women are a clear majority; the gender structure in sales being similar to Group-level averages.

In administration, over 80 per cent of employees in Corporate Functions are women. Human Resources and Services are dominated by women. In finance and administration, however, there are only slightly more women than men.

All of Orion’s 140 secretaries and assistants are women. A supervisor’s position was held by approximately 470 employees in 2009 and 46 per cent of them were women.