Women ask for less money - report (From Leigh Journal)

Women ask for less money - report

12:39pm Tuesday 25th March 2008 in

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Women are asking for nearly £4,000 a year less in pay than men on average when registering with a leading online recruitment service, it was disclosed today.

A survey of 850,000 people who registered in the last year with www.reed.co.uk showed that the average UK man expected to earn £3,600 more than the average UK woman.

Jobseekers born between December 23 and January 19, aged between 40 and 50, and called Steve, who also live in the South East of England, were the most ambitious.

Expecting a salary of £26,482, Steve was more ambitious than Graham, at £24,324, and Ian, at £24,168.

The most ambitious woman was Jane but she asked for a much lower salary than Steve, expecting just £20,346 a year.

The least ambitious male and female names in the Top 50 were Adam who expected £17,411 per year and Danielle who expected £15,071.

Jobseekers in the South East of England demanded the highest salary levels, at an average of £21,165.

They were closely followed by job seekers in the South West England, at £19,403, and East Anglia at £19,679.

Jobseekers in Northern Ireland expect the lowest salaries at £17,556, followed by the North East England, at £17,776, and Wales where the average salary expected was £18,286.

The site also analysed salary expectations by nationality and found that jobseekers from the Middle East demanded the highest salaries.

The average jobseeker from Qatar expected to earn £62,000 a year, and job seekers from Saudi Arabia expect over £40,000, double the expectations of the average British jobseeker, who wanted just over £20,000.

The three most popular job sectors for jobseekers over the past year were administration and secretarial positions, followed by IT and telecoms and accountancy.

Martin Warnes, operations director at reed.co.uk, said: "Our analysis of over 850,000 jobseekers revealed some interesting trends - the most worrying being that women across the UK have far lower salary expectations than men - something which needs to be addressed, as there is no reason why in 2008 this should be the case.

"As we would have expected, job seekers from the South East demand the highest salaries.

"However, the salary levels are not as polarised as we might have expected, perhaps indicating that living costs have risen across the UK, not just in London and the South East."

Salary expectations by region:

March 2007 - February 29 2008.

South East England £21,165.

South West England £19,403.

East Anglia £19,679.

East Midlands £19,346.

West Midlands £19,076.

North West England £18,645.

Yorkshire and Humberside £18,352.

Scotland £18,678.

Wales £18,268.

Northern Ireland £17,556.