9 in 10 female blue collar employees in India are confident they receive equal pay: Indeed

94% of women employees surveyed think diversity and inclusion is important at work

Indeed, the world’s #1 job site, today released the findings of the report titled ‘The Pulse of India’s Blue Collar Workforce’, which examines the state of men and women representation among the blue collar workforce in India and how blue collar organizations measure up in terms of diversity and work culture. According to the report, over 95% of Indian female blue collar employees are confident they receive equal pay and 93% of male employees have also said the same.

When asked what would be their next course of action if they found out they did not receive equal pay, 67% said they would be most likely to speak to their manager and 21% said they would leave the job. Interestingly, 70% of the female employees said they would speak to their boss as opposed to 65% males and 23% of male employees said they would leave the job as compared to 18% female. This shows how the blue collar workforce is content at work and has positive motivation towards solving challenges at work which in turn increases efficiency and productivity in this sector. A slight difference is also seen in how millennials and Gen Z react. Employees surveyed aged 25-34 are most likely to leave their job if they found out they weren’t receiving equal pay, compared to those aged 18-24 (24% vs 19%).

Sanjukta Ghosh, Social Impact Manager, Indeed said, “Overall, the blue collar segment has been faring well with hiring seeing a positive growth in the last two years. The rise of the gig economy is also expected to add buoyancy to the segment, with Indeed’s data showing that there is a 9 million gig workforce in the making by 2025. Given this growth, organizations are revamping their policies and structure to incentivize more employees to join. Our data shows that men and women in blue collar are more or less on the same page when it comes to equal pay, importance of equal gender representation and the benefits of it. Blue collar employees are satisfied with most aspects of their work, which speaks volumes of the kind of mileage we can expect in this segment in the coming year or two.”

Blue collar employees are happy at work

A whopping 96% of employees agree that their company provides additional benefits/support in the form of mental support, financial support, retirement benefits, flexible work etc. 90% also agree that their company has a good work/life balance signifying that employees are happy at work and are satisfied with the company policies and systems.

A majority of blue collar employees surveyed (46%) believe that they have an excellent representation of women at their workplace and the impact of this is high as well. 87% of blue collar workers say that equal representation of women in their company makes them feel more confident, motivated or inspired. 80% also said diversity at work makes them more likely to stay working there and 73% said they are more likely to go above and beyond for the company.

Employers are supporting by devising processes for fair representation

97% of employers think that gender equality is important and are doing their best to improve diversity and fair representation in their organizations. However there are still challenges that prevail. Lack of support systems in place to help women (56%), lack of education about gender equality (53%) and societal views (49%) are the major deterrents to achieving gender equality.

To combat these, employers are trying to implement processes and systems to achieve gender equality within their company. The top 4 things employers surveyed are currently doing are offering the same salary to male and female employees for the same job role (61%), offering the same incentives to male and female employees (61%), zero tolerance for sexual harassment and gender discrimination (53%) and avoiding the use of gender stereotypes/non-inclusive language (45%).

Methodology

The research was conducted by Censuswide on behalf of Indeed with 508 employers and 1001 employees in the blue collar segment. Out of the 1001 employees in the blue collar segment, 653 were male and 348 were female.