December 20, 2017
Companies must reveal gender pay gaps or face unlimited fines
Businesses failing to comply with gender pay gap reporting regulations could face unlimited fines and convictions, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has warned as it published its enforcement strategy. As the regulatory body responsible for ensuring that all employers with over 250 employees report their gender pay gap statistics, the Commission has set out its enforcement policy for consultation. Although it will take steps to encourage compliance and engage informally with employers who are in breach of the regulations as a first port of call, it will ultimately enforce against all employers who do not publish their gender pay gap information. The Commission’s policy – which is open for consultation from today until 2 February 2018 – explains how the Commission will use a range of its powers.
November 10, 2017
Warnings of widening gender pay gap as women are hit hardest by low pay
by Sara Bean • Comment, Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace
It is Equal Pay Day today (Friday 10th November) – the day in the year which is marked in the calendar as the one where women start to work for free, and the campaigning charity the Fawcett Society has warned that the pay gap is actually widening for some groups of women and will now take 100 years to close, based on the current rate of change. Research by the Living Wage Foundation published to mark the day has also revealed women are hit hardest by low pay in the UK. Women make up nearly two thirds (62 percent) of workers currently struggling to make ends meet on less than the real Living Wage claims the Foundation, which amounts to 3.4 million women compared to 2.1 million men. Nearly 1/3 of all UK working women (26 percent) are still earning less than the Living Wage, compared to just 16 percent of all working men. And this trend has been the case since 2011, when KPMG and the Living Wage Foundation launched its annual Living Wage report.
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