Early analysis of the data for the 2021/22 reporting year has found that the gender pay gap has norrowed slightly compared to last year.
Gender Pay Gap Reporting
The 2021/22 gender pay gap reporting year marks the first time in 3 years that organisations with 250 or more employees were required to report their data on time in accordance with the original designated deadlines. For public sector employers, the deadline was the 30th March 2022, with a snapshot date of the 31st March 2021. For private sector employers and voluntary organisations, the deadline was the 4th April 2022, with a snapshot date of the 5th April 2021.
The legal requirement for organisations to report their gender pay gap data for the 2019/20 reporting year was suspended on the 24th March 2020, on account of the Covid-19 pandemic and the first national lockdown. As regards the 2020/21 reporting year, the deadlines were moved on the 23rd February 2021, to midnight on the the 4th October 2021.
Gap Narrows
Early analysis of the 2021/22 gender pay gap data has found that compared to last year in terms of hourly pay, the median gender pay gap has narrowed from 10.2% to 9.8% according to The Guardian. The mean pay gap, moreover, has also fallen from 13.9% to 13.6% according to Bloomberg.
According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), the construction sector had the largest median pay gap, with women earning just 76p for every £1 earned by men. In the information and communication sector, women earned 83p for every £1 earned by men, whilst in the financial and insurance sector, it was 88p. A sector with one of the smallest pay gaps was human health and social work activities, in which women earned 98p for every £1 earned by men, whilst in the arts, entertainment and recreation sector, it is 96p
One of the largest median pay gaps was recorded by easyjet, in which women earn just 36p for every £1 earned by men. A spokesperson for easyjet stated: "gender pay submission does not represent a complete picture because the data in April 2021 included pilots, while the majority of our predominantly female UK cabin crew community remained on furlough."
Commenting upon the early analysis of the data, the senior policy adviser for reward and recognition with the CIPD, Charles Cotton, stated: "figures show that very little has changed when it comes to addressing the gender pay gap in Great Britain.....Employers shouldn’t just report the numbers; instead they need to understand the reason for any gap and be transparent about how they plan to tackle it."
Missing The Deadlines
In the 2020/21 gender pay gap reporting year, a total of 10,548 organisations submitted data. Moreover, as at the 9th April 2022, 10,170 organisations have reported their data for the 2021/22 reporting year thus far. Hence, several days after the 2021/22 deadlines had passed, over 350 organisations had still yet to lodge their gender pay gap data for the 2021/22 year.
Nevertheless, the scale of the missed deadlines is down compared to the numbers who missed the extended deadlines for the 2020/21 reporting year. According to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), "We took action against 1,400 employers who had registered but failed to report by the extended October 2021 deadline. This included issuing warning notices to over 200 public sector employers and over 1,100 private sector employers across England, Scotland and Wales. By 25 March 2022 99% of the 1,400 employers had taken the steps they needed to comply with the gender pay gap regulations."
The EHRC added: "For those organisations who failed to report their gender pay gap information for the October 2021 deadline, we will consider taking formal enforcement action against repeating non-reporters once the 2022 reporting deadlines have passed. We consider this approach proportionate in view of the shorter period for enforcement between the extended 5 October 2021 deadline and the 2022 deadlines."
