Hourly gender pay gap at TikTok Ireland falls to 2.6%

Gap in bonus pay at social media company’s operations in the Republic remains weighted in favour of women

There is now 'near-equal representation of both men and women' in each pay bracket at TikTok Ireland, the social media company said. Photograph: Thomas Trutschel/Photothek
There is now 'near-equal representation of both men and women' in each pay bracket at TikTok Ireland, the social media company said. Photograph: Thomas Trutschel/Photothek

TikTok Ireland’s women employees earned 2.6 per cent less on average per hour than their male counterparts, down from a mean hourly gender pay gap of 5 per cent last year, according to the social media company’s 2023 gender pay gap report.

Published on Thursday, the report indicates that the median pay gap – a comparison of how much a woman employee at the midpoint of all hourly wages paid to women is paid compared to a male employee at the midpoint of all male hourly wages – at the ByteDance-owned company’s operations in the Republic is now more positive towards women, who earn 0.6 per cent more than men.

Both mean and median bonus pay, meanwhile, was also higher for women this year, continuing a trend from last year. Mean bonus pay was 2.9 per cent higher for women, down from 3.4 per cent last year, while median bonus was 2.3 per cent higher for women.

TikTok, which employs around 2,000 people in the Republic, said the reduction in both the median and mean gender pay gap – a metric that compares the pay of all men and women, rather than just those working in similar jobs, with similar experience, skills and qualifications – relates to the composition of TikTok’s workforce.

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When the Chinese-owned company’s workforce is split into quartiles from lowest to highest level of pay, there is now “near-equal representation of both men and women” in each quartile, according to the report.

Women are also better represented in the upper middle pay (second highest) pay quartile, accounting for 51.9 per cent of the total while there is a gap of just 1 per cent, weighted in favour of men, in the top pay bracket.

“While these results are once again extremely encouraging, we will keep focusing on key initiatives across talent attraction, internal mobility and professional development as we strive to be the most inclusive and equitable organisation that we can be,” TikTok said.

Ian Curran

Ian Curran

Ian Curran is a Business reporter with The Irish Times