The gender pay gap at companies in West Sussex – revealed

A total of 54 companies in West Sussex have revealed their gender pay gap for the year 2019/20.
The gender pay gap across companies in the county has been revealed. Photo: ShutterstockThe gender pay gap across companies in the county has been revealed. Photo: Shutterstock
The gender pay gap across companies in the county has been revealed. Photo: Shutterstock

The coronavirus pandemic means it is not a legal requirement this year for large employers in the UK to disclose their gender pay gap.

But around half of them - 5,555 organisations - have done so.

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In West Sussex, four out of five companies which submitted their report had a gender pay gap in favour of men.

A total of eight companies had a pay gap in favour of women (15 per cent), while two had no pay gap at all (four per cent).

The breakdown is as follows:

– In Adur, all six of the companies which chose to disclose this information had a pay gap in favour of men.

– Similarly in Horsham, out of the seven employers that submitted their reports, all seven had a pay gap in favour of men

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– In Arun, four employes disclosed their pay gaps. Three had a pay gap in favour of men – including Arun District Council – while one had a pay gap in favour of women. –

– In Chichester, of the eight that disclosed, seven had a pay gap in favour of men – including the University of Chichester. However one, Chichester District Council, had a pay gap in favour of women

– Meanwhile in Worthing, out of the six companies that disclosed the information, four had a pay gap in favour of men, while two were in favour of women.

– In Mid Sussex, ten companies submitted the report. Of these, seven had a pay gap in favour of men – including Mid Sussex District Council – while two had a pay gap in favour of women. One company had no pay gap at all.

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– Crawley had the highest number of companies submit the reports – a total of 13. Of these, 10 had a pay gap in favour of men, two had a gap in favour of women, and one had no gender pay gap.

The gender pay gap does not look at whether men and women are paid the same for equal work.

Instead, it measures the difference between the average wages of men and women.

Across the UK, more than four-fifths (81 per cent) of employers who had submitted reports by June 1 had a pay gap in favour of men, analysis by JPIMedia shows.

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According to the data, 12 per cent of employers had a pay gap in favour of women, while 7 per cent had no gap.

The average pay gap of all reporting companies was 12.9 per cent in favour of men.

The incomplete nature of this year’s data makes comparisons with the previous year difficult.

But in 2018/19, 77 per cent of large employers reported paying men more.

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A leading gender equality charity said it was important the Government does not ‘drop the ball’ on the issue.

Gemma Rosenblatt, Head of Policy and Campaigns at the Fawcett Society, said: “The picture from this incomplete data isn’t good, with more employers reporting that men were paid more than women than last year.

“It shows why it is important that the Government doesn’t drop the ball on the gender pay gap.

“The coronavirus pandemic has hit women’s incomes hard, so it’s more important than ever that this data is published.”

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Baroness Berridge, Minister for Women, added: ”Tackling the underlying issues that hold women back in the workplace will be important as we look to recover from this crisis.

“We recognise the unprecedented pressure and uncertainty that is currently facing employers, which is why we have taken the decision to suspend the enforcement of gender pay gap reporting this year.”

The UK Government’s Equalities Office said employers are still able to report their gender pay gap data should they wish to.

Since 2017, any organisation with 250 employees or more has been obliged to report their gender pay gap.

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This analysis has been done by using the organisations’ median hourly pay gap.

This shows the difference in pay between the earnings of the middle ranking man and woman.

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