Hyundai has allowed women to apply for technician roles at its South Korean plants for the first time. This decision comes as a result of pressure from the company's union and activists who advocated for improved gender equality in Hyundai's manufacturing locations.

Despite opening up applications to women, Hyundai has only hired six women as technicians out of the 200 new technicians recruited during a recent recruitment drive.

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.

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.