Women received smaller pay increases at small and mid-sized businesses: survey
Global News
The average monthly salary for a woman was anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000 less than what men earned and men were about 10.7 per cent more likely to get a boost than women.
The average salary increases given to men this year were nearly double the amounts received by women, a new survey has found.
The survey of more than 4,000 small- and medium-sized businesses by Toronto-based HR software company Humi found the average salary increase women working for small- and medium-sized businesses saw in 2021 was 5.3 per cent, while men received a 10.3 per cent salary increase.
“As scary as this stat is in 2021, the numbers were also pretty bleak in 2020,” said Andrea Bartlett, Humi’s human resources director.
That year, Humi found the average monthly salary for a woman was anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000 less than what men earned and men were about 10.7 per cent more likely to get a boost than women.
In 2021, there was a slight improvement. Men were 4.4 per cent more likely to receive a raise than women, Humi found.
The disparity in pay raises at small- and medium-sized businesses over the last year was the latest pain in a “she-cession” that economists say has left women underpaid, overworked and often shut out of job opportunities.
They’ve warned that droves of women have left the workforce over the course of the pandemic with many attributing their departure to uneven parenting responsibilities, a lack of flexibility in their job and layoffs.
They say the pandemic exacerbated inequality in a labour market already known for paying women 89 cents for every dollar made by a man and long derided for its “motherhood penalty” — a term used to describe the ways women who have children are treated by employers.