Irish earnings high – but gender pay widely differs

WE ARE a nation of high earners and social welfare is “generous”, but the gap between men and women’s pay is above average.

A new international study assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the country’s labour market also reveals workers here suffer less “job strain” than most.

This is because many employees do not work long hours, according to the OECD’s new ‘Jobs Strategy’ report.

On the downside, it finds that in terms of being inclusive, the labour market has “some scope for improvement”.

The gap between women and men’s pay is higher than the OECD average. It also finds we enjoyed the highest growth in workers’ productivity – or output – of the 36 OECD nations during the recovery. But this was driven by multinational companies and was only modest at Irish firms.

“Earnings quality is higher than the OECD average, as hourly wages are higher than many OECD countries, although wage disparity is also somewhat higher than the OECD average,” it says.

The report found a higher than normal gender pay gap and low employment rate for women, particularly those without qualifications.

It said underemployment of those who could find work, but only for shorter than normal hours is “markedly higher”.

This was mainly due to high levels of part-timers.