The TTC has been on a mission to recruit more women into transit operator positions since it released its 10-Point Action Plan on Diversity and Inclusion last December, and it seems the efforts are slowly but surely having an impact.

The transit agency published data this week outlining the results of the recruitment commitment thus far, and though the target of having women represent 40 per cent of all new hires has yet to be reached, the success rate for women passing the interview stage has increased from 32 per cent to 79 per cent.

"The operator role has historically been predominantly male and makes up the majority of the TTC's workforce," reads the analysis of the stats. "Earlier this year, we launched a special program to recruit more women to the role."

TTC has published stats on its efforts to hire more women operators. They're not at their target of 40% of new hires being women, but the success rate for women passing the interview
stage has increased from 32% to 79% pic.twitter.com/UMyDaWaDhe

— Ben Spurr (@BenSpurr) September 9, 2021

In Q2 of 2021, the TTC hired a total of 142 new operators — 118 men and 24 women — with women representing just 17 per cent of the total new hires. 

But the agency pledges to do better going forward. 

The TTC reviewed the hiring process to "remove built in biases" as part of its efforts, which resulted in the removal of criteria such as needing to be employed in the last year in an effort to prevent the exclusion of "women who stayed home to raise their families and were now ready to join the workforce."

And though the TTC has not yet met its target of 40 per cent of new hires identifying as women, it says it is on track to meet this goal by the end of 2021.

The transit agency says it plans to hire 400 new operators this year, of which at least 160 (40 per cent) will be women.