Women ‘a Nightmare’ to Employ in U.K.

[scandal 951]

backfiring at a 'female level'??

less of the 'alpha male'??

Gotta love the Brits!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...id=axq3ov2ElRV0

Women ‘a Nightmare’ to Employ in U.K., Hambro Executive Says

By Thomas Penny

Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Equality legislation is making it more difficult for women to get a foothold in the U.K.’s financial sector, a fund manager at JO Hambro Capital Ltd. told members of Parliament in London today.

Nichola Pease, deputy chairman and former chief executive of the division of Credit Suisse Group AG, said companies are scared away from hiring women because penalties for successful sex discrimination claims are unlimited and the U.K. offers 52 weeks of maternity leave compared with 12 weeks in the U.S.

“A year maternity leave is too long, and sex discrimination claims that run into 10s of millions of pounds are ridiculous,” Pease told the Treasury Committee, a cross- party panel of lawmakers overseeing economic policy.

The committee is investigating why women in the financial services industry earn less than men and gain fewer executive- level jobs. A report in April for the Equality and Human Rights Commission said the pay gap between men and women working in fund management, stock broking and futures trading is as high as 60 percent, with a 79 percent difference in bonuses.

“What I worry about is that legislation and protection turns this into a nightmare,” Pease said. “We’ve got to be realistic and make sure the protection, which has very good motivation, doesn’t end up backfiring both at a female level and at a U.K. competitiveness level.”

Often discrepancies in pay are a result of choices made by women, she said.

‘Commercial Realities’

“While we’d like to give everyone flexible working, certain jobs require full time, they require a lot of travel, unsocial conference calls to deal with, and those are the commercial realities. We need to live as a country with those commercial realities,” Pease said.

The committee also heard from Charles Goodhart, a former Bank of England policy maker and an emeritus professor of finance at the London School of Economics, who said the financial crisis may have been averted if more women served on bank boards.

“There would have been less likelihood of the kind of financial crisis we’ve just had if there had been a larger number of women CEOs in the financial sector,” Goodhart said. “I think less of the alpha male would be very beneficial.”

[scandal 951]

Bump for MC.

This thread really needs a woman's perspective. Particularly a British one.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Women would be the first to complain if there were fewer alpha males around.

Then they'd be stuck with schmucks like me.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

More abortions = less maternity leave

[Peikko 1,575]

I never worked in high finance.

Companies I have worked for didn't discriminate against hiring women - in fact the ratio was about 1:1.

[Peikko 1,575]

I don't know anyone that has made a sex discrimination claim either - but I am sure they happen.