Further, of those employed in Quarter 1 and Quarwho switched occupation, 52.6% were men and 47.4% were women. “For those workers who have remained in employment, there was only a slight increase in the incidence of occupational switching from the pre-pandemic period to the period covering the pandemic.
Secondly, the ONS’s analysis of employees changing occupation between Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) and Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2020 concludes that: Firstly, the ONS’s monthly UK labour market release includes statistics in the October 2020 publication that the employment rate for both women and men changed by half a percentage point, and between January to March 2020 and April to June 2020 the average number of hours actually worked by men declined by 17.4%, and the average number worked by women also declined by 17.3%. Other labour market statistics are also useful for assessing the relative impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions on male and female employees. This conclusion is supported by the pattern of change in the pay gap within occupation groups (Figure 4) and across earner deciles (Figure 6), both of which show a fall in the gap within higher-paid jobs as well as lower-paid. These findings suggest that – because the gender pay gap is based on median pay – furloughing had a small impact on the gender pay gap, and the majority of the reduction in the gap is because of underlying changes in pay. For both men and women, the vast majority of these employees were in the lowest-paying jobs the 10% lowest-earners were substantially more likely than the average employee to fall into this definition. This has the potential artificially to impact the gender pay gap estimates in 2020 for example, if a notably higher proportion of men than women (or the other way around) were furloughed with reduced pay, the headline gender pay gap estimates would be more likely to reflect short-term labour market conditions rather than underlying pay trends.Ī slightly higher proportion of men than women were furloughed with reduced pay in April 2020, as indicated in Figure 2. It is believed that approximately half of these employees received only 80% of their normal pay.
The data collected in the Annual Survey for Hours and Earnings (ASHE) 2020 relate to the pay period covering 22 April, at which point approximately 8.8 million employees were furloughed under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS).