H&M Group has said its gender pay gap figures were below the national average, after the UK arm of the global fashion retailer published its results last Friday.
The Swedish firm – which owns COS, Weekday, Monki, Cheap Monday, & Other Stories, Arket and the eponymous H&M – said its mean pay gap was eight per cent, compared to a UK average of 17.4 per cent and retail average of 16.4 per cent.
Meanwhile, its median pay gap came in at 3.94 per cent, compared to a UK average of 18.4 per cent and retail average of 9.3 per cent.
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H&M Group said the results were based on an analysis carried out on April 5 last year, when it had 9907 people on its UK payroll – including 7746 women and 2161 men.
It added that the results were not because women and men were being paid differently to do the same job, but because of the structure of its workforce – the majority of its store staff were female and there was a higher percentage of men working in senior roles.
H&M stressed that it was “fully dedicated to an equal pay structure for all our employees”.
H&M joins a growing list of major retailers that have already revealed their gender pay gap figures, which come as the government prepares to implement news rules from April whereby businesses with more than 250 employees must publish annual figures breaking down pay.
As part of the process, businesses must upload a report onto a government website, as well as their own.
The report must detail mean and median gender pay gaps, the proportion of men and women receiving a bonus, and the proportion of men and women in each quartile of the company’s pay structure.
Gender pay gap is different to equal pay, which deals with the pay differences between men and women who carry out the same jobs.
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