The U.K. Government has been called upon to help the music industry fix its gender pay gap, which averages out at 27.6% across the three major labels, as of 2020 figures.
Revealed last week, the numbers, which are legally required to be published for companies with more than 250 employees in the U.K., show little progress. In 2019, which is the last time all three companies published their figures (they were let off the hook due to COVID-19 last year), the average pay gap stood at 29.6%.
As of April 2020, at Universal U.K., the mean average hourly rate of pay was 29.2% lower for women than it was for men. Sony U.K.’s gender pay gap was 25.4%, while Warner U.K.’s stood at 30%.
Bonus payments paint a particularly disappointing picture: At Universal, female employees who earn a bonus were paid 49.6% less on average than men, Sony’s bonus gap was 50.4% and Warner’s 56.9%.
