Narrowing of gender pay gap ‘negligible’

The recent narrowing of the gender pay gap in the UK has been called “negligible” by one sector commentator – which could lead to an increase in concern surrounding salary discrimination.

Figures recently released by the Office for National Statistics show that the overall gender pay gap for both part-time and full-time workers narrowed by 2.5 per cent compared to last year.

This means the gender pay gap for full-time workers has decreased to 12.2 per cent from 12.6 per cent in 2008, a fall of 0.4 per cent.

Meanwhile, for part-time staff the negative gender pay difference narrowed to -2.0 per cent compared with -3.7 per cent the previous year.

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However, commenting n the research, Karen Gill, MBE, co-founder of everywoman, suggested there could still be improvement.

“This is a key part of the everywoman manifesto, although there has been a slight move towards improving this gap, in real terms this is negligible and there’s still a way to go,” she said.

According to the National Equality Panel, women’s median hourly pay is 21 per cent less than men’s.