Women at JPMorgan earn 1% less than male colleagues

JPMorgan Chase & Co. said Friday that its female employees earn 99 per cent of what male employees make globally, making it the fifth large U.S. bank to disclose an adjusted gender pay gap of around one per cent.

People of colour employed by the bank earned more than 99 per cent of what white workers made, according to an internal note sent to employees. The company is strongly committed to diversity, said Robin Leopold, head of human resources, adding, “We know we can always do more, and we will.”

As a growing number of financial firms reveal whether men and women are compensated equally, they have clustered around 99 per cent parity, after adjusting for factors such as job role, seniority and locale. In addition to Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and Bank of New York Mellon Corp., MasterCard Inc. last week reported that its gender pay gap was around one per cent.

The numbers stand in stark contrast to the average gender pay gap in the U.S., which has hovered around 20 per cent since 2007, according to the National Women’s Law Center.

JPMorgan’s workforce is about evenly split among men and women, but women remain under-represented at senior levels. Men make up 70 per cent of executives and 83 per cent of corporate directors, according to data from the Bloomberg Financial- Services Gender Equality Index.

The new disclosures anticipate the looming deadline for all companies employing more than 250 people in the U.K. to publish their unadjusted gender pay gap numbers for their British employees — a requirement that will include the big U.S. banks.

While the recent spate of voluntary disclosures have highlighted very small adjusted discrepancies, JPMorgan seemed to be warning employees that its U.K. filing may paint a different picture.

“The bare numbers, excluding these types of factors, will show a gap between the pay of men and women,” the firm wrote in its memo. “But we have found that employees are paid appropriately when taking into consideration their business area, their experience and the work they do.”

Few global banks have filed their U.K. disclosures. On Thursday, Barclays Plc said it pays female employees at its investment banking division about half of what men make. On Friday, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc said its female employees earned 37 per cent less than men and Lloyds Banking Group Plc said its pay gap was 33 per cent.

Gaps such the one at Barclays show how “men dominate the most powerful and well paid positions,” said Natasha Lamb, managing partner at Boston-based Arjuna Capital, which pressured the five banks and other financial companies to make the disclosures.

“Step one is paying women fairly for the work they are doing now. Step two is moving them to higher paying positions and reaping the performance benefits that more diverse leadership affords.”

Arjuna withdrew its proposals at JPMorgan and MasterCard on Friday following the companies’ disclosures.