Saga Travel’s 13.1% gender pay gap revealed

Saga Travel says it is “passionate” about creating more equal representation across its business after revealing a gender pay gap which shows its female staff’s hourly rate is 13.1% lower than it’s male staff.

All UK businesses with 250 or more employees were requested to submit a gender pay review by the government.

The report, submitted ahead of the government’s April 4 deadline, shows that women working for the company earn on average 87p for every £1 men do when calculated using the mean hourly rate.

But when using the median hourly rate, taking into account the hourly wage of the person in the middle of both groups, Saga Travel wage for its female employees was 3.5% higher than for its male employees.

That means women earn £1.04 for every £1 men earn when calculated using the median method.

Filed under ST&H Limited, the firm’s report also showed that 65.7% of women received bonus pay, compared to 49% of men, but that women’s mean bonus pay was 31.6% lower than men’s.

Karen Caddick, group HR director, said: “Saga is an advocate of equality, diversity and inclusion and we therefore wholeheartedly welcome the transparency created by publication of Gender Pay across all organisations in the UK.

“We recognise that Saga Travel has one of the lowest gender pay-gap figures in the travel industry, however we are not at all complacent. We recognise that at Saga we do still have have a gap and we are both passionate and committed to addressing it.

“In line with many other organisations the gap is largely driven by the demographic make-up in favour of men in some of our most senior and high paying positions within the company. We acknowledge there is no ‘quick fix’ to this, and achieving more equal gender representation across our organisation requires sustained drive and focus.

“Female representation in all roles and levels across our organisation is incredibly important to us and it was for this very reason that we were early signatories of the 30% Club – to both add our weight to the campaign for greater representation of women on the boards of FTSE listed companies and also to sign up to the target of a minimum of 30% on our board.”

Travel Weekly analysis found that firms in the industry are among both the best and worst businesses for offering gender pay equality.