Deloitte reveals ethnicity pay gap of over 8%
As increasing pressure is put upon businesses to mind the gap in pay between ethnicities and genders, a number of professional services firms have released their salary data. This has most recently seen Deloitte declare that it has a disparity in wages of almost 9% between BAME staff and their white colleagues. The details were released as part of Deloitte’s wider commitment to end the pay gap differences.
The gap in pay between workforce demographics has increasingly become a major cause for concern among the public, as the UK’s workforce steadily diversified throughout the 20th Century. Women, in particular, are often paid less than their male counterparts, despite performing the same work. A recent study found that, on average, women are paid an average of £6,100 less per year . Despite studies suggesting that, by 2025, gender equality in the workplace could add more than £444 billion annually to the UK's GDP, progress has remained slow.
However, that is not the only pay gap of note, with people from ethnic backgrounds also being found to be underpaid for similar work or unable to climb the ladder due to, among others, implicit biases. In a bid to promote action from bosses, the UK Government has required large employers to disclose pay conditions throughout their organisations, including for different ranks. The move is aimed at shining a light on conditions, creating ground swell for change to what are ultimately unfair conditions.
Professional services firms have begun to voluntarily disclose the pay gaps, prior to the imposition of a government mandate. Among them, Deloitte, with more than 17,500 employees across the UK, revealed the current pay and bonus gap for its various ranks.
The firm’s own analysis found that the median pay gap per hour work for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) employees stands at 8.7%, while, across the whole of its ethnicity category, the gap stands at 12.9%. Bonus payments, however, fared considerably worse, with BAME employees being awarded, on average, 34.7% less and the ethnicity group, as a whole 41.9% less. This is comparatively lower than that of Big Four rivals EY, who recently reported an ethnic pay disparity of 17.3%, with a median of 9.8%.
As is the case with the other large consulting firms, such as PwC, which have released data revealing a difference in pay between white staff and BAME employees, Deloitte blames its own gap chiefly on there being fewer BAME and employees of ethnicities in the firm’s higher echelons. However, this is hardly a mitigating factor, as it still highlights a disproportional lack of representation or equal opportunities at these firms. As it stands, BAME background employees represent 18% of the firm’s workforce, but hold fewer than 5% of its senior positions. In order to change this, the firm has committed to increasing the number of partners from a BAME background to more than 10% by 2021.
Commenting on the Deloitte’s commitment and its wider will to create a more equitable organisation, Emma Codd, Managing Partner for Talent at Deloitte UK said, “Our focus on providing a culture and environment where everyone can be themselves, thrive, develop and succeed is starting to have a positive impact. While today’s pay gap report demonstrates that there is still some way to go, we are fully committed to achieving the balance we should have through targeted actions alongside our continued focus on providing an inclusive culture.”
