Gender inequality: How Google paid women MORE than men

The technology giant had noticed the gender pay-gap which affects some of its low level software engineers in its annual analysis of compensation across the firm. According to their findings, women would be paid more than men. The California based company uses an algorithm to work out how much a worker should be paid based on the market rate for their role, their location, level and performance rating, but managers are able to issue bonuses or raises on merit.

In total, Google paid out $9.7million (£7.3million) in automatic adjustments to 10,677 employees.

However of that total it did not specify how many of those were due to men being underpaid.

Lauren Barbato, lead analyst for pay equity and people analytics at Google, said: “Our pay equity analysis ensures that compensation is fair for employees in the same job, at the same level, location and performance.”

She added: “But we know that’s only part of the story. Because levelling, performance ratings and promotion impact pay, this year we are undertaking a comprehensive review of these processes to make sure the outcomes are fair and equitable for all employees.”

Meanwhile former Google engineer Liz Fong-Jones took to Twitter, arguing that the revelation does not constitute sexism against men.

Ms Fong-Jones said: “Worth noting is that they again failed to control for underpromoting and under-levelling women.

“If you have a group of women who are outperforming at level, of course they’ll get given more manager discretion.”

Google’s has come under-fire in recent years over its handling of diversity and inequality, most recently highlighted by a global walkout of an estimated 17,000 workers in protest at claims of sexual harassment, gender inequality and systemic racism.

Following the movement, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai pledged that the company would be more forceful and open about how it deals with sexual misconduct cases.

source: express.co.uk