Almost 80% of employers pay men more than women, UK data shows – business live

Key events

Paul Kelly, head of employment at the law firm Blacks Solicitors, said:

Transparency from businesses is vital to achieve gender equality within the workplace. Businesses should aim for equal pay, equal treatment, equal access and equal representation. Research shows that businesses that actively support gender equality have more inclusive teams that make better decisions up to 87% of the time.

There is increasing pressure for employers not just to report the numbers but instead understand the reason for the gap, the importance of reporting and be transparent about how they intend to tackle this.

Women paid 90p for every £1 a man gets in the UK

Women are being paid about 90p for every £1 a man gets in the UK, the latest gender pay gap data shows.

It’s important to know how this is measured: companies line up their male employees in order of salary and do the same for women, before comparing the two in the middle to calculate the average gender pay gap.

So this is not just about men and women getting equal pay for equal work, it’s also about how many women are in senior (better-paid) jobs.

The data also shows that the gap opens up when people have kids – early on in their careers, women and men earn similar salaries.

Dharshini David, a former UK economist who is now business correspondent at the BBC, has looked at five things you need to know.

Swiss regulator calls for more power

Switzerland’s financial regulator has called for more power to penalise, and name and shame banks that break the rules, following the near-collapse of the country’s second-biggest bank Credit Suisse and its rescue by UBS.

Marlene Amstad, president of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma), told journalists:

Our instruments hit their limits in extreme cases as seen in the case of Credit Suisse.

Finma has no power to fine. It’s an exception when compared with other regulators.

She said most of the watchdog’s investigations into banks had to remain secret to protect stability, and added that this should change.

Finma is keen to ensure that we can make our work more visible to the public in future – as our supervisory colleagues in other countries are often allowed to do.

Yesterday, Credit Suisse’s chairman Axel Lehmann said he was “truly sorry” for the bank’s demise, speaking at its final annual meeting where angry investors called for board members to be “put behind bars”.

Today, Switzerland’s biggest bank UBS, which agreed a rescue takeover of Credit Suisse, faces investors at its annual meeting in Basel. It is due to start shortly.

FINMA chair of the board Marlene Amstad attends a press conference after talks over UBS taking over its rival Swiss bank Credit Suisse, in Bern on March 19, 2023. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

On the markets, European shares opened slightly higher. The UK’s FTSE 100 index is up 11 points, or 0.15%, at 7,645.

Germany’s Dax and France’s CAC also edged 0.1% higher while Spain’s Ibex gained 0.3% and Italy’s FTSE MiB was flat.

HSBC, Goldman Sachs pay gaps widen

Back to the UK’s gender pay gap.

Banks HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Standard Chartered reported a widening in the gap between what they paid men and women in 2022, according to analysis by Reuters.

At the banks that disclosed their pay gaps by ethnicity, the gap was biggest between Black staff and their white colleagues.

Businesses with more than 250 employees in Britain must disclose the difference between the regular pay and bonuses of male and female staff. The deadline was yesterday, for the year up to April 2022.

HSBC, one of the worst banks in Britain for gender pay, reported that women were on average paid 45.2% less than men. This was up from 44.9% the year before.

The UK arm of US investment bank Goldman Sachs reported a gender pay gap of 53.2%, the largest among major finance employers, and up from 51.3%.

Morgan Stanley’s UK business had a slightly wider gap of 40.8%, up from 40.5%, while Standard Chartered’s gender pay gap increased to 29% from 27%.

All four banks said that the figures reflected the under-representation of women in senior roles, and said they were taking steps to address this.

Richard Gnodde, chief executive of Goldman Sachs International, wrote to staff in a memo yesterday:

I assure you that we are intent on changing this, but of course it takes time.

In better news, most other major finance firms made some progress in closing their gender pay gaps.

The average across 20 of the biggest employers fell to 30.1% in 2022, from 31.7% in the prior year – but still remains way above the average across all UK employers of 8.3%.

German factory orders jump in February

In Germany, factory orders rose 4.8% in February from January, compared with a 0.5% gain in January. On the year, orders are still down by almost 6%. After a slump since last summer, industrial orders have recovered in recent months.

Carsten Brzeski, global head of macro at ING, said:

Industrial orders have now rebounded sharply since November, brightening the outlook for German industry. However, the US slowdown and the longer-term fallout from recent financial turmoil, as well as the broader impact of monetary policy tightening, could still spoil the party.

These strong industrial orders data fuel recent optimism in German industry. Interestingly, production expectations had just started to weaken again after the initial enthusiasm over the Chinese reopening at the start of the year.

Looking ahead, the outlook for German industry has clearly brightened, even if the high inventory build-up since last summer is still likely to weigh on production in the short run. Beyond the short term, however, the question will be whether today’s boost in new orders is the start of an industrial revival or whether the expected slowdown of the US economy, the fallout from recent financial market turmoil and the broader impact of monetary policy tightening will spoil the party again.

Introduction: Almost 80% of employers pay men more than women, UK data shows – business live

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.

Nearly two-fifths of UK employers pay men more than women, on average – showing a worsening picture since companies were first forced to report on their gender pay gap six years ago, despite a push for more equality.

A Financial Times analysis of this year’s data shows that 79.5% of employers paid their male staff more than their female colleagues, higher than the figures last year and six years ago.

The average gap, or the difference between men’s and women’s average hourly pay, was 12.2% in 2022-23, unchanged from last year but higher than the 11.9% in 2017-18.

You can view companies’ gender pay gap reporting here. More on this later.

In other news, new car sales in the UK rose for the eighth consecutive month in March, climbing 17% from a year earlier, although sales remain below pre-pandemic levels, according to preliminary industry data.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said it was the biggest month ever for battery electric car registrations. More details will be released at 9am BST.

Asian stock markets struggled, with Japan’s Nikkei down 1.6% while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 0.66%. Other markets, like Shanghai, Singapore and South Korea’s Kospi made modest gains. On Wall Street, US stocks declined yesterday after data showed US job openings hit their lowest level in nearly two years in February.

Asian markets also retreated after the Reserve of New Zealand unexpectedly hiked rates by 50 basis points instead of the widely expected 25 basis points. Other central banks appear to be considering slowing, or even pausing their rate hikes.

The Agenda

• 8.15am BST: Spain S&P Global Composite PMI for March

• 8.45am BST: Italy S&P Global Composite PMI for March

• 8.50am BST: France S&P Global Composite PMI Final for March

• 8.55am BST: Germany S&P Global Composite PMI Final for March

• 9am BST: UK New car sales for March

• 9am BST: Eurozone S&P Global Composite PMI Final for March

• 9am BST UBS Annual meeting in Basel

• 9.30am BST: UK S&P Global/CIPS Composite PMI Final for March (forecast: 52.8)

• 1.30pm BST: US Trade for February

• 3pm BST: US ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI for March