MPs are calling for small retailers to release their gender pay gap statistics following a landmark release of company data earlier this year.
In April, the deadline for UK companies with over 250 employees to publish their gender pay gap figures was up, leading over 10,000 companies to publicly release their records.
A new report from the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee has now called for all companies with over 50 employees to follow suite and publish their figures by 2020.
The report goes on to suggest that there is evidence the gender pay gaps are higher in smaller companies, and that alongside mean and median figures companies should publish an explanation of any potential disparities.
Retail employs just under three million people in the UK, 60 per cent of whom are female.
Despite this, just 10 per cent of retail boardroom positions are held by females.
In an industry where 90 per cent of transactional decisions are made by women, the disparity in pay is perhaps one of the most significant among all industries.
Following the deadline for large companies to publish pay gaps in April, it was revealed that 78 per cent of companies have a pay gap in favour of men, and 13 per cent of had a gap in favour of men of over 30 per cent.
“Gender pay reporting has helped to shine a light on how men dominate the highest paid sectors of the economy and the highest paid occupations within each sector,” BEIS chair Rachel Reeves said.
“Our analysis found that some companies have obscene and entirely unacceptable gender pay gaps of more than 40 per cent.
“Transparency on gender pay can only be the first step. The gender pay gap must be closed, not only in the interests of fairness and promoting diversity at the highest levels of our business community, but also to improve the country’s economic performance and end a monstrous injustice.”
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