Set out salary in adverts to close pay gap, employers told

COMPANIES will be urged to list salaries on job advertisements to help boost wages of women and ethnic minorities.

The initiative, which ministers will launch today, is aimed at reducing the pay gap between white males and their co-workers. The Government also wants businesses to stop asking job applicants to disclose their salary history, as they believe this will help to close the gender pay gap. Officials say this is because women and those from ethnic minorities are less likely to negotiate a high salary and also more likely to be turned down if they attempt to.

Ministers want companies to list the salary on job adverts “by default”, which they say will help to “level the playing field” between men and women. A pilot scheme, which could last between six and 12 months, will be launched this year, where companies can sign up to mandatory reporting of salary bands on job adverts.

Officials will then analyse results to see if it has helped boost the wages of women and other minorities, and if it is deemed a success, the initiative could be rolled out more widely.

Baroness Stedman-scott, a Tory peer and minister for women, said the initiative was aimed at “breaking down the stigma” of talking about money. Writing in the political magazine The House, she said: “We are calling for all employers, where possible, to list salaries on job adverts by default, giving applicants a clear idea of what they are applying for, and significantly improving the transparency of the whole process.

“When salary information is not included or stated as negotiable during recruitment, it often leads to women and people from ethnic minority backgrounds being paid less over time.”

She said that black professionals are twice as likely in the UK to be turned down for a pay increase than their white counterparts. Baroness Stedman-scott cited research that suggests women are “less likely to initiate negotiation than men, causing a lower starting salary, which often leads to ongoing inequality throughout their careers”.

A second initiative will also be launched today, aimed at helping women return to work in science, technology, engineering and maths careers after they have taken a period of leave for caring responsibilities.

A recent study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that the gender pay gap has barely changed in 25 years if the gains in women’s educational attainments are excluded. It found the average working age woman in the UK earns 40 per cent less than male counterparts.

This is largely because women are nearly 10 per cent less likely to be in paid work, do eight fewer hours of work a week and earn 19 per cent less an hour on average, at £13.20 rather than £16.30.