Gender pay reporting misses the mark when it comes to people of colour
In April 2017, the government put into law a practice where employers with 250 or more employees must publish and report specific figures about their gender pay gap. The gender pay disclosures that have been revealed show major systemic inequalities among UK employers. The legislation on pay reporting however falls significantly short, and does not tell the full story, in particular with regards to pay of ethnic minorities. A petition has been set up to ask the government to extend these pay reporting rules to cover ethnicity pay gap.
Surveys and anecdotes point to vast inequities between the earning power of white workers and their counterparts from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds (BAME), who make up 14 per cent of the working-age population in the UK, but only 10 per cent of the workforce and 6 per cent of top management.
Several companies and institutions have voluntarily published ethnicity pay gap data, which suggests ethnicity pay gap is as much of a problem as gender pay gap.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) state that as many as 29 per cent of black employees believe discrimination has played a part in stalling their careers, echoing a 2015 Business in the Community (BITC) study, which concluded that “racism very much remains a persistent, if not routine and systematic, feature of work life in Britain”.
The “big four” professional services firms — KPMG, PwC, Deloitte and EY — have already revealed their ethnicity pay gaps. At these firms, BAME employees earn 7%-13% less than their white colleagues on average (this figure is 34%-38% if you count Partner pay).
BAME workers are also concentrated in lower levels at these organisations, so are less likely to reach the top and earn the highest salaries.
Tackling ethnicity pay gap is a national issue, and by making reporting on them mandatory, will, as with requirements to report gender pay gap, provide focus and momentum to enable positive change.
The UK government petition to extend gender pay gap reporting to ethnic minorities can be found here: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/214965
