On Wednesday, financial services firm Barclays released its 2017 annual report, which revealed that female employees of the company are paid roughly half, on average, of what male employees are paid.
The 326-page report indicates that female employees across Barclays' international workforce earn 48 percent less than their male coworkers on average.
Bonuses were also significantly lower for women. Over 93 percent of both female and male Barclays International employees receive a bonus, but female employees received bonuses that were a staggering 78.7 percent lower than their male peers.
Barclays suggests that these findings are a result of fewer women in high-paying leadership roles. Across the 79,900 members of Barclays' global workforce — of which 45,100 are male, 34,800 female — there are currently 401 senior management positions held by male employees, compared to just 154 held by female employees. As Bloomberg points out, Laura Padovani, interim chief compliance officer, is the only woman on Barclays's nine-member executive team.
In releasing this data Barclays is complying with new regulations under the U.K. Equality Act, introduced on March 31, 2017, which require all companies with 250 or more employees in the U.K. to report statistics on how women and men are compensated. Bloomberg estimates that over 9,000 companies will be required to submit these figures by April 4th. So far less than 1,200 have done so.
"We welcome the introduction of gender pay gap reporting to bring further focus to our commitment to improving gender diversity – a commitment that is, and will remain, at the core of our talent management and leadership succession processes," states the Barclays report.
This pay gap data collection policy is similar to an initiative introduced in the U.S. in 2016. However, in August of 2017, just days before these figures were due, President Trump suspended the initiative, in part, the administration argued, because the data would be too burdensome for companies to collect.
"I think we can safely assume all affected employers have access to electronic payroll records and an employee or contractor with specialized knowledge of how to manipulate those records," Gary Burtless, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute, told CNBC Make It. Since most large employers already have this information on hand, "it should not be very burdensome to produce the requested information."
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