UK firms rush to submit their gender pay figures before midnight
Dozens of UK firms still have to publish their equal pay figures before the deadline on Wednesday at midnight, although approximately 9,000 companies had already submitted their data.
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That followed Westminster's recent push to force businesses with 250 employees or more to publish their figures on gender pay differences as part of its fight for equality.
UK companies are rushing to file their reports before the deadline, with more companies (approximately 1250) having published over the past 24 hours than in the past 326 days.
Nonetheless, Labour MP Harriet Harman, one of the leaders of the government's Equality Act 2010 measure, said that the excuses some companies had put forth to explain their results were "pitiful".
But since large pay gaps are still not unlawful - although not reporting a pay difference is - Harman urged the Equality and Human Rights Commission to take those companies to court.
"The EHRC have the power to do inquiries and issue codes of conduct and they have to use those powers. They need to do inquiries into particular firms, sectors and regions, so that people don’t just publish their gender pay gap and then get on with pay discrimination as usual," she said.
According to the BBC, 78% of the firms that had already published their figures paid men more, with only 13% paying women more.
Only 8% reported no gap at all between their employees.
In remarks to The Daily Telegraph, the Prime Minister said the measure was meant to tackle “burning injustice”.
The whole of society will remain "poorer" if this issue goes unchallenged, Theresa May said, as she unveiled plans to "close the gap for good within a generation."
Somewhat ironically, the Conservative party remained among those who as of Wednesday had yet to publish their figures, although since it employed less than 250 people it was not under obligation to do so.
Labour on the other hand reported their females employees earned 4% less than their male counterparts.
On one of the more extreme sides of the spectrum, Apple UK reported that male staff earned 2% less than female staff but there was still twice as many male employees working for the company (70%). Apple also reported a gap in rewards, with men receiving 22% more than women in bonuses.
On the other, Ryanair revealed it was paying 67% more to men for fixed hourly pay as at April 2017, alongside a pay gap for bonuses stands at 20.6%, although far more females, at 82.8%, were receiving a bonus, in comparison to only 27.8% of their male colleagues.
Ryanair said that was because there more male pilots than female.
There are currently 546 male pilots and just 8 women.