Today, on Monday 28th November, we’re calling on the community to join us in ‘downing tools’ and put on their out of office, to raise awareness of the gender pay gap. We invite you to be part of the movement.
The gender pay gap sits at 9.2% for women in Aotearoa currently. We urgently need your help in shifting this dial.
For our second year in a row, we’re calling on our whānau to raise awareness on the last working day for women, Monday 28th November — and invite you to spread the word to your organisations, workplaces, communities and whānau by including the below message as an out of office message today and for the rest of the week if you wish.
We want to use this day to encourage individuals and organisations to have an open conversation about the inequalities that drive ethnic and gender pay gaps. It is only when we have conversations about the gaps and why they exist that we will be able to take steps to close them.
Support #NoPayDay in your out of office message
We encourage those aligned with our message to set their out of office message on Monday 28 November and include the following copy:
I am out of office until 1 January 2023.
That got your attention – didn’t it? I am not, but for some women, they may as well be.
On average New Zealand women are paid 9.2 % less than our male counterparts – and with 9.2% of the year left, this effectively means that from today onwards, the average Kiwi woman is working for free.
This inequality is even worse for Māori and Pasifika women, who began “working for free” from November 4th.
We urgently need to close the gender pay gap and bring pay equity and transparency to the fore in New Zealand. Please join us by sharing this message in your out of office today in order to help us raise awareness of the need for pay equity and pay transparency in Āotearoa New Zealand.
You can find out more about the equity initiatives Global Women is driving such as Champions for Change and programmes we are supporting including Mind the Gap and the Pay Secrecy campaign on https://championsforchange.org.nz/uncategorised/nopayday-2022/
#NoPayDay
A snapshot of the current Gender Pay gap in Aotearoa
Our 9.2% gender pay gap means that for every 365 days the average Kiwi man is paid for, the average Kiwi woman is only paid for 331. Monday 28th of November is the 332nd day of the year — so this effectively it is the day that the average kiwi woman is working for free.
This inequality is even worse for women of colour with the pay gap between all men and wāhine Māori, and between all men and Pasifika women sitting substantially higher at 15.7%. This equates to both groups of women having begun “working for free” from November 4th.
This #NoPayDay Global Women wants to encourage organisations and individuals to:
1. Report and monitor their organisations pay gap: Unless organisations are aware of their current pay parity status – when it comes to both gender and ethnicity – they can’t fully understand the changes that need to be made. Organisations need to make a commitment to scrutinise and monitor any existing pay gaps and then make a plan to correct them.
2. Be transparent from day one: If salaries are kept secret this will often result with people being remunerated different amounts for the same job, in turn stifling social mobility and fuelling systemic inequalities. A progressive step to take here is to state a salary when recruiting. By advertising a role with a clear salary band this helps break the cycle on both gender and ethnic pay gaps – it will also stop you inheriting a pay gap from a candidate’s previous employer.
3. Join our movement and set your out of office: To drive conversation on the day we will be encouraging our members and networks to mark the day by setting their out of office message in line with our campaign.