Payroll

Should you be able to ask potential hires what they earn?

Should employers be banned from asking potential employees their salaries? The Young Women’s Trust charity said that the salary question is partly to blame for trapping women on low pay.

The charity believes it is more likely that including salary details in job adverts instead would help close the gender pay gap between men and women.

The Young Women’s Trust commissioned a YouGov poll which found that nearly half of advertised jobs did not include any wage details with the practice most common in the private sector.

The charity says that making pay more transparent would make it harder for employers to, even unintentionally, pay men and women different amounts for similar roles.

Commenting on this, its chief executive, Carole Easton, said: “We have to break the cycle that traps women in low pay.

“Women often start work on a lower salary than men, move to a new job and are paid based on their previous wage, as opposed to what they or the role are worth – so they continue to be paid less.”

Asking applicants about previous or current pay has already been banned in New York and California.

The Young Women’s Trust, a charity that supports young women on low or no pay, says that, other than in exceptional circumstances, UK organisations should follow suit.

Across the UK, men earned 18.4% more than women in April 2017, according to the?Office for National Statistics?(ONS).