Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----and 25. If we move more people under 25 into education and training, the unemployment rate as a percentage potentially increases because of the way it is calculated. Those people get taken out of the calculation because they are not considered to be part of the workforce. The standard unemployment rate is calculated as a percentage of the workforce. There is a difference between percentages and raw numbers but I can provide a written briefing for the Deputy on that if I have not explained it properly. It is not that young people are more likely to be unemployed. It is that the denominator is different because so many young people are involved in education and training, they are not counted as part of the workforce. That makes the percentage higher, if not the probability of unemployment.

When it comes to the minimum wage, the Government takes advice from the Low Pay Commission, a statutory body established by the Oireachtas to make recommendations on minimum wage. We have increased the minimum wage twice during the period of this Government. The living wage is calculated differently. There is no input from employers in that, which I believe is a weakness. If a minimum wage or a living wage is being calculated, it should have the input of employers as well. Ultimately, they are the employers. They are stakeholders. Their views do matter, and their views should be heard. Ultimately, they create the jobs and they can advise us as to whether jobs may be put at risk.

The living wage does not give adequate regard to the views of employers. It also takes into account housing costs, which are very high, but it is not the case that everyone has housing costs. There are people who own their home. There are people who live at home, for example. It is based on certain assumptions which are different from those made on the minimum wage, which is drawn up by the Low Pay Commission which advises Government on that.

On the gender pay gap, Cabinet has approved the heads of a Bill on that issue. The legislation will require companies of more than 250 employees initially moving to companies of more than 50 employees to calculate the gender pay gap in their companies and publish it. Having published it, I imagine they will be required to explain it, particularly if we see disparities from one company in the same business to another company in a similar business because there will be pressure brought on as a consequence of transparency to deal with it.

We have equal pay for equal work and there are often other reasons there is a gender pay gap. It is not necessarily down to a female worker getting paid less than a male worker for the same work. It is often down to women not getting a fair go when it comes to promotion or not being able to rise up the ranks of a company or business because they are not getting a fair number of promotions. Also, women often work shorter hours than men because women often take on more of the caring responsibilities than their partners. That is something companies cannot change but we can change through public policy.

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