Shocking
Oil giant Shell has admitted today that it still has “some way to go” on gender balance in its workforce after disclosing that its male staff on average earns 22 per cent more than female employees in the UK.
The FTSE 100 firm employs more than 5,000 people across the UK. It said the fact that it had fewer women in senior leadership roles was one of the key reasons for the gender pay gap.
The UK’s biggest company is the latest to publish its gender pay gap after the government required bodies with more than 250 employees to publish such figures every year to tackle workplace discrimination.
The UK gender pay gap was 9.1 per cent for the year to April for full-time workers, according to the Office for National Statistics. Following this, OnePoll also undertook a poll in October where they contacted 2,000 professionals across Europe’s top economies to see how the UK compares to other countries in providing workplace gender equality.
Source: @OnePoll
The study found that even the top economies in Europe are leaving women behind when it comes to equality in pay as data revealed that both the UK and Germany feature in the bottom 5 European countries for the gender pay gap, meaning women in both countries are paid more than 20 per cent less than their male colleagues. France did better, but still only managed a ranking of 14th amongst its EU peers, with a pay gap of 15.8 per cent between men and women.
This is even more discouraging as Britain comes in at number one for female career progression, highlighting that advancing to top management positions has not halted the disparity.
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