Growing number of workers at opposite ends of the wage scale
The gap between earnings for men and women who work full-time has increased to 10 per cent from 9.5 per cent last year, new figures have revealed.
In April 2013, the average gross weekly pay for full-time employees was £517, up 2.2 per cent from £506 in 2012, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
But for men, full-time earnings averaged £556 a week, compared with £459 for women. The gender pay gap was calculated by taking the difference between men’s and women’s earnings as a percentage of men’s earnings.
The data also showed that the median pay gap between full- and part-time workers was £4.75 an hour, which disproportionately affected women as they were three times as likely as men to work part-time.
Trade unions criticised a lack of government action to prevent this year’s “shock rise” in the gender pay gap, which had started to narrow slightly in recent years.
“The light touch, voluntary approach to tackling gender pay inequality is clearly failing,” said the TUC's general secretary, Frances O’Grady. “We need tougher action to force companies to look at their pay gaps.
“The government can lead the way by making all new public sector vacancies available on a part-time or flexible basis, so that women don’t have to trade down jobs if they need to work fewer hours to balance their career with caring responsibilities,” she added.
Today’s Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings also revealed that the median salary for full-time workers in the UK has grown to £27,000, an increase of 2.1 per cent on 2012. The highest average weekly pay was recorded in London at £658, and the lowest in Northern Ireland at £460.
In terms of individual pay, some 10 per cent of full-time staff were found to receive £27.02 an hour or over, a rise of 1.5 per cent compared with last year. At the other end of the scale, 10 per cent of full-time workers earned less than £7.28 per hour – also up 1.5 per cent on last year.
ONS added that there were 279,000 jobs paying less than the national minimum wage in the UK. Of these, 203,000 were held by employees aged 21 and over, and the remaining 76,000 by 16- to 20-year-olds.