Europe

Mind the Gap? What Do the UK Pay Disclosures Really Tell Us?

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1. Mandatory reporting under the methodology required by the government indicates some large pay gaps. What does that mean?

As of 17 April 2018, 10,364 employers had published their gender pay gap figures. What have we learnt? That almost eight out of ten employers are paying men, on average, more than women?

Well … yes – sort of, but that’s not the full picture. Remember, gender pay reporting is an entirely different calculation to that of equal pay (and pay equity in the U.S.) – you cannot conclude that an average gender pay gap of 59 percent means that a female employee earns 41p for every £1 her male colleague earns. A more accurate, but admittedly less provocative, title for reporting would be the ‘gender opportunity gap’ or, as energy company Shell coins it, the ‘talent gap’. READ MORE →

Iceland Moves to Freeze Out Wage Discrimination

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On January 1, 2018, Iceland’s amended Equal Pay Standard took effect, the latest in a serious of measures seeking to address the persistence of national gender wage gaps. The law requires employers with 25 or more employees to obtain a government certification every three years verifying a company’s compliance with equal pay requirements. Failure to attain certification exposes employers to liability of up to nearly $500 in penalties per day. Employers with an observed pay differential can comply by raising the salaries of employees to eliminate the differential. READ MORE →