Women in IT lower salary gap
Women are closing the salary gap but still trail men with the largest gaps appearing at the very top of the career ladder, according to new research by the Australian Institute of Management.
The AIM research showed female chief executives earn 16.4 per cent less than male CEOs ““ a two per cent improvement on its 2008 results. Female general managers were found to be earning 12.5 per cent less than their male counterparts ““ a 0.8 per cent improvement on last year.
The average pay gap has also narrowed between the genders from 10.6 per cent in 2008 to 10.2 per cent in 2009.
The AIM bases its annual salary report on data collected from 759 organisations across Australia.
The researchers take steps to counter the natural skew that occurs due to the different male and female workforce participation rates and the fact more men hold senior roles than women. The AIM uses a sub sample of 164 roles where pay data exists for both genders to enable analysts to compare “like with like” .
The report also looks at “job families” to view pay equity amongst sectors. Information technology has the lowest pay gap with women earning an average 4.9 per cent less than men. Accounting was the poorest performer with a salary gap of 12.1 per cent ““ up 0.6 per cent on 2008.
Most improved were Human Resources where the salary gap fell by two per cent and Manufacturing, Supply & Distribution where it fell by 1.4 per cent.
Mercer Consulting has also released its six monthly salary data, which shows salary continues to fall.
Despite several positive reports on increasing job numbers, Mercer’s Market Issues Survey of 287 employers reveals the rate of salary growth across Australia slowed from 4 per cent, six months ago to 3.5 per cent in July 2009 with further falls predicted.
Mercer claims pay movements will not hit bottom until next year.
Of those employers surveyed, 28 per cent plan to reduce fixed reward budgets this year and a further 16 per cent were not planning to provide any increase at all. A further 44 per cent said they were planning to maintain fixed reward spend at current levels over the next 12 months.
