Women earn €2 per hour less than men

Women earn on average over €2 less per hour than men, the latest National Employment Survey reveals.

The survey, done by the Central Statistics Office in March 2006, found male employees earned €20.59 per hour while female counterparts earned €18.22 per hour.

In all sectors men earned more than women, the report said.

The gender gap was the greatest in the education and health, where women earned around 68 per cent and 71 per cent respectively of men's average hourly earnings.

The smallest difference was in the hotels and restaurants sector, where women earned around 89 per cent of men's hourly earnings.

The average working week was 34.8 hours with men working an average of 38.4 hours and women 30.9 hours per week.

The survey found two-thirds of employees earned less than €20 per hour, with half earning less than €15.39 per hour - the median hourly earnings figure. Average hourly earnings for full-time workers were €20.74. while part-time workers received an average of €13.89 per hour.

Average earnings per hour were highest in the education sector at €32.27 per hour followed by the financial sector at €30.29, and the electricity, gas and water supply sector at €27.04.

The lowest average hourly earnings were in the hotels and restaurants sector at €11.96 per hour.

The report found professional occupations had the highest average earnings of €32.81 per hour, followed by managers and administrators at €31.18 per hour.

The lowest-paid occupational category was for "other occupations" which was mainly manual labour, with average earnings of €12.93 per hour.