18th April 2018
The results are in! And they don’t look good… UK companies with more than 250 employees had to report details of the gap between the median hourly rate paid to male and female staff by midnight on 4th April.
For the uninitiated, the gender pay gap is the difference between the average hourly earnings of men and women. The figure is expressed as a proportion of men’s earnings.
According to the latest figures, the gap between what male and female workers earn stood at 18.4%. The mean gender pay gap, the percentage that accounts for the average across all markets, today is 17.4%, which is good, be we have much further to go.
So how did the UK do across the sectors? According to the figures released from the government… not good.
Banking
JP Morgan
JP Morgan revealed the biggest gender pay gap among the major banks with a median gap of 54%. However, the gap was much smaller for its UK business as a whole, taking into account its legal entities and other departments. That compares with a 36.4% median gap at Goldman Sachs and a 29% gap at HSBC.
The gap at all of the banks is prompted by the prevalence of men in the highest-paid jobs. At JP Morgan 78% of those in the highest-paid roles are men.
Macquarie Group
The global investment firm’s corporate division revealed that women earn 60% an hour less than men in median terms with a bonus gap of 83% – making the investment firm the most imbalanced well-known financial institution. Nearly 90% of those in the best-paid jobs are male while women make up 58% of the lowest paid.
Airlines
Ryanair
Ryanair is the worst in the airline industry. It’s 72% pay gap shows that women only make up 3% of the airline’s top earners. This figure is about four times the UK average.
But Ryanair management and administration are based in Ireland, so they are excluded from the figures. If the trend of gender-biased roles continues at Ryanair as it does everywhere else, the gap will doubtless be even bigger.
95% of Ryanair’s UK-based staff are pilots or cabin crew. Only eight of Ryanair’s 554 UK-based pilots are female, while women make up more than two-thirds of low-paid cabin crew.
Retail
Boux Avenue
The lingerie group, which is part of the empire of the Ryman owner and former Dragon’s Den regular, Theo Paphitis, reported that women on average earn 75.7% less per hour than men.
The gap, the biggest for a well-known company, reflects the fact that the vast majority of the retailer’s staff are female shop workers. A similar pattern is seen at other fashion chains where shoppers are usually served by women, but a small group of men are employed at head office.
Phase Eight is a great example of this; the median pay gap is 54.5%. Meanwhile, the exercise clothing chain Sweaty Betty, which has 99% female staff, had a median gap of 68%.
Tech
Apple
Apple filed its figures on Wednesday revealing that 71% of its top-earning employees were men. Men are paid more across the entire company. For Apple UK, the median pay gap is 24%. At Apple Retail the gap is only 5%.
This is just one example of a big tech firm disregarding the Gender Pay Gap. Recently, Google also revealed troubling pay gap statistics.
Local Authorities
North Hertfordshire District Council had the worst median gender pay gap among local councils at 34%. The Council revealed 61% of its top roles were taken by men, while women dominated the lowest-paid roles, such as in admin.
Education
Sussex Learning Trust
Sussex Learning Trust, which operates two schools in West Sussex, revealed that women earn nearly 63% less an hour than men, the widest for an academy group. Only one man and no women received a bonus. The education sector has very gender-biased roles, reflecting a sector-wide gap of over 50%.
Media
The North Wales News company, which runs several local newspapers including the Chester Standard and the North Wales Chronicle, is the worst of a terrible bunch with a cavernous gender pay gap of 85.2%.
Telegraph Media Group (TMG) pays women 35% less than men on average. Almost three-quarters of TMG’s highest-paid staff are male, with women making up just 26.9% of the top earners.
At the other end of the pay scale, women make up 61.6% of the lowest earners. Men also received bonuses of almost twice those paid to women on average.
And then there were the 1500 companies who just didn’t bother filing at all.
We’ll have to wait a month for these to be made public, while the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) sends out reminder letters and prepares to investigate fraudulent looking figures and those who fail to comply with the law.
