U.K. Labour Reveals Its Gender Pay Gap and It Appears Very Low
U.K. Labour Reveals Its Gender Pay Gap and It Appears Very Low
(Bloomberg) -- Labour beat the governing Conservatives to publish gender pay statistics and they make the main opposition party in the U.K. look good, showing that its male employees earn 4 percent on average more than women.
While that is not perfect, it’s way lower than the 18 percent pay gap that is the national median average -- the mean number was 2.5 percent. In its submission, Labour says it is committed to abolishing the gap completely.
Labour also put out its figures ahead of an April 4 deadline and before the Tories, who set the policy to force organizations with more than 250 workers in the U.K. to be transparent. So far only around 1,000 out of an expected 9,000 organizations have reported the data demanded by the government.
"I’m surprised that Labour has beaten the Tories to the publication of its gender pay gap given this is a government initiative," says Charles Cotton of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development.
An email was sent to the Conservative Party’s headquarters inquiring if and when the Tories would release their own data.
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, Flavia Krause-Jackson, Caroline Alexander
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