Despite being an essential industry the works had difficulty obtaining suitable workers to build all the ships on its order books. In an attempt to reduce the labour shortage it employed women in a number of jobs under a scheme called "dilution" whereby it was agreed with the unions that once the war ended the women would give up their jobs. Throughout the war the company employed on average 10,000 workers at Clydebank works, of which 7,000 were in the shipyard and 3,000 in the engine works. In January 1918, 87 of these were women.