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Retailers

Women managers in retail earn £4,300 less than men

A study looking into gender pay under new government reporting requirements has revealed a 19.4% gender pay gap in the retail sector.
According to an analysis of managers’ salaries conducted by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and XpertHR, male managers in this area of work on average earn £4,315 more than their female peers.

The average earnings of female managers stand at £17,937 versus £22,252 for men. This figure includes salary and bonuses, as well as perks such as car allowance and commission.

However the gap is considerably lower than the average across sectors, where the disparity is 26.8%.

Under government reporting regulations which came into effect in April 2017, large firms with more than 250 employees must now publicly disclose the size of their gender pay gap.

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As of 22 September, just 77 of the 7,850 UK companies to which the new law applies have done so.

This is the first time that pay gap data has been published taking into account the new rules, and the study in question is based on analysis of salary data of 118,385 managers from 423 organisations over the past year.

The findings also revealed that women are more likely to fill junior management positions than men (66% vs. 34%), and men are much more likely to occupy senior positions – 26% of director-level roles are occupied by women, 74% by men.

But for those women who are in more senior roles, the pay gap widens considerably: at director-level positions to £34,144, with men earning an average of £175,673 and women £141,529.

Bonus payments also add to the problem, with the gender bonus gap across all managers standing at 46.9%. This increases considerably at C-suite level, where the average bonus for a male CEO is £89,230 compared to £14,945 for a woman – an 83% bonus pay gap.

Male directors got a 5.8% increase in pay and bonuses, compared to 3.7% for women (compared to 4.0 and 3.3% respectively last year). For managers, men outpaced women by 3.7 to 3.5% (whereas they took home 3.0 and 3.2% increases the year before).

Ann Francke, CMI’s chief executive, said: “Too many businesses are like ‘glass pyramids’ with women holding the majority of lower-paid junior roles and far fewer reaching the top. We now see those extra perks of senior management roles are creating a gender pay gap wider than previously understood.
“The picture is worst at the top, with male CEOs cashing-in bonuses six times larger than female counterparts.”

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