March 21, 2009 – (HOSTSEARCH.COM) – Kate Craig-Wood, MD of Web and IT hosting company,
Memset and recent NatWest Everywoman of the Year winner is calling on technology companies to look at who costs the most before making redundancies.
Kate Craig-Wood is reacting to Friday’s report from the International Labour Organisation, which warns that the recession world-wide could increase the number of unemployed women by 22 million in 2009.
“In the IT industry women earn a massive 23% less than male counterparts, despite being equally capable.” says Craig-Wood, “Before making redundancies IT companies should conduct a quick pay audit, then let go those who are on higher wages for the same job.”
“Such actions will also serve to counter-act the danger of the boy's club mentality within the sector resulting in women being preferentially targeted for redundancy,” Craig-Wood claims.
Craig-Wood, 32 and a member of the Women in IT committee at the IT industry’s trade body Intellect, argues that sacking the 'more expensive' first would also help to redress the serious imbalance in an industry massively dominated by males. The number of women has plummeted from 21 per cent to 16 per cent in the last five years.
“According to Intellect, ‘the under-representation of women in IT remains a significant and worsening issue’,” she says. “We also know from research by Cataylst that companies with the highest representation of women on top management teams perform more than 30% better financially.”
Memset itself, which is a Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50 company, is in the fortunate position of not needing to make redundancies as it is growing fast, thanks to the current wave of cost-driven IT outsourcing.
Memset is an award-winning dedicated web hosting company. Established in November 2002, the company was the first to offer high quality, flexible dedicated server packages on a fair and scalable pricing model. The development of their Miniserver™ technology has enabled Memset to be recognised as the leading developer and supplier of virtual dedicated server systems in the UK.
Memset is Britain's first Carbon Neutral ISP, has been voted best UK Web Host for 2006, 2007 & 2008 by PC Pro readers and recently won Surrey's Innovation in Business award and British Chamber of Commerce South East Impact of Technology award.
