Reducing our Gender Pay Gap
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The Gender Pay Gap (GP Gap) is measured as the difference between the average [39] salary for women and for men. Our GP Gap compares with that for the Public Service as a whole of 12.2 percent.
- At 30 June 2018 our Gender Pay Gap was 15.1%
- By 30 June 2019 this had improved to 13.1%
The primary driver for the GP Gap continues to be the ongoing challenge of having a high proportion of women in lower and mid-level roles, with fewer progressing into senior and executive management roles.
The greatest pay gap occurs in the manager group, where the average pay for men is 14.7 percent higher. This partly reflects the lower representation of women at higher management levels.
However, we have made progress in 2018/19 on lifting remuneration at the lower levels of the organisation, where more than 70 percent of our employees are women.
Actions taken in 2018/19 aimed at reducing the GP Gap include:
- development of a 12-month Gender Pay Gap Action Plan in conjunction with key stakeholders including network groups and unions
- role reviews in our Service Delivery Group, resulting in pay increases for most of our frontline and processing employees
- additional increases for managers placed low in their remuneration range
- ongoing increases to ensure that all our employees are paid at least the New Zealand Living Wage
- work on developing a new performance and remuneration framework, with a focus on ensuring equitable recognition of all our people, regardless of personal characteristics such as gender, ethnicity or age.
Gender distribution by level of seniority
Executives and senior managers
Middle management
Middle management Other staff
Ethnicity distribution of staff
Public service
MSD
NZ Workforce
Footnotes
[39] Average salaries are calculated by the MSD Cost Analysis and Modelling Tool, which excludes fixed-term, part-time and seconded employees.
[40] June 2018. State Services Commission, Public Service Workforce Data: Human Resource Capability Survey 2018. http://www.ssc.govt.nz/ assets/Legacy/resources/2018-Public-Service-Workforce-Data_pdf_0-v2.pdf
[41] Statistics NZ, Household Labour Force Survey, June 2018. https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/labour-market-statistics-june2018-quarter
[43] Figures exclude other, not stated and refused to state. Figures do not always add to 100 percent as people may identify with more than one ethnicity
[44] MELAA refers to Middle Eastern, Latin American and African ethnicities.