Goldman Sachs' U.K. Women Earn Half as Much Per Hour as Men

(Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. pays women in the U.K. an average of 50.6 percent less than male colleagues per hour, although this is an improvement on the 56 percent gap the Wall Street firm reported a year ago.

For year-end bonuses the gap is much wider at 66.7 percent, which is also slightly better than the difference between genders last year, the bank said in a statement published Monday.

The figures reflect the imbalances that still exist at the biggest financial firms. HSBC Holdings Plc said earlier this year that its hourly pay gap between men and women had grown to 61 percent. The firm said employees are paid the same for similar roles but that women are often under-represented in senior positions.

Women at financial firms in the U.K. earn on average around 28 percent less than men do, according to nearly 100 companies in the financial sector that have reported so far this year. This is more than twice the average gender pay gap across all industries of around 13 percent.

Firms with U.K. offices are now reporting their second set of figures under rules introduced in 2017 requiring the data to be made public. The government asks for firms to average out wages for male and female employees, irrespective of seniority.

Goldman Sachs’ Chief Executive Officer David Solomon said last week that the firm was fully committed to improve senior representation of women in the firm. In a memo to all staff, Solomon wrote: “Diversity and inclusion is a top priority at Goldman Sachs.”

“We need to improve senior representation in order to change the results of these measures, and we are confident that the steps we’ve outlined will help us, over time, increase our representation of all diverse professionals at senior levels,” said Solomon.

Richard Gnodde, CEO of Goldman Sachs International, said in Monday’s announcement that his team “will be moving quickly to implement the new initiatives” outlined by Solomon. These include requiring interviews for open roles to include two or more qualified diverse candidates.

To contact the reporter on this story: David Hellier in London at dhellier@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Aaron Kirchfeld at akirchfeld@bloomberg.net, Marion Dakers, Ambereen Choudhury

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