Final gender pay gap figures revealed
Around 10,000 firms reported their gender pay gap figures – with 1,000 firms reporting on the last day.
The numbers reveal that three-quarters of companies pay men more than women.
Featuring in the top ten are the likes of Ryanair, with a 71.8 percent gender pay gap, as well as lingerie company Boux Avenue, with a median hourly pay gap of 75.7 percent.
However, there are some surprises that feature in the mix.
Costa, KFC, Matalan, McDonald’s, Primark and Starbucks are just some of the big companies that have reported there is no difference in what they pay their staff.
Telegraph Media Group has the biggest gender pay gap of any UK publisher or broadcaster, with women earning 35 percent less than men on average.
Pankhurst Centre Operations Manager Bunmi Abdulrauf organises drinks from a Votes For Women mug in the former home of Emmeline Pankhurst and where the Suffragette movement began on October 8, 2015 in Manchester, England. (Richard Stonehouse/Getty)
Around 1,500 companies missed the April 4 deadline to report their pay.
Enforcers of the legislation, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said that they will be taking action against every organisation that has failed to meet the deadline.
“We’re looking at approximately 1,500 companies which haven’t reported,” a spokesperson told the BBC.
“We’re obviously pleased with the rate of reporting, but it is the law, it’s not an option. It is the right thing to do, and we will be enforcing against all those organisations which failed to meet the deadline.”
Unions and policymakers are offering advice to women and companies on how to equal out the playing field to eradicate the issue once and for all.
“Bonuses and performance-related pay are red flags – in firms where it is predominantly men in the senior management roles, big bonuses traditionally go to men,” Scarlet Harris, women’s policy officer at the TUC, told The Guardian.
“Men are deciding who gets the bonus and they decide what achievement and good performance looks like in a company; an old boy network can guide those decisions, as well as prejudices about who is the right person to award the bonus to. This could also be influenced by presenteeism; if a woman has caring issues they might be brilliant at their job but leaving to pick up children.”
