Is this discrimination?

diystarter7

lancstulip said:

I am extremely experienced and over qualified for the job to boot so they couldn’t justify the higher rate offered on those grounds either. 

What if the other person is a woman?

It's most likely they've changed the job description to an extent and expecting more from the newbie.

Have you asked them why? I'm sure I've already answered it and may say you are welcome to apply.

Marcon

lancstulip said:

Surely offering a significantly higher rate of pay for doing the exact same job with the same experience is discriminatory.

No. Happens all the time. Discrimination has to be unlawful before you can 'do anything' about it and there's absolutely no evidence that is the case here. You aren't the first person to be miffed by this sort of thing...sometimes you have to wonder about employers!

k12479

lancstulip said:

I am extremely experienced and over qualified for the job to boot so they couldn’t justify the higher rate offered on those grounds either. 

Being extremely experienced in a role or being overqualified for it are not necessarily good things as they can indicate a lack of progression, in which case stagnating pay is not unusual.

TELLIT01

lancstulip said:

Surely offering a significantly higher rate of pay for doing the exact same job with the same experience is discriminatory.

No it is not discriminatory to offer a higher figure when trying to recruit, in fact it has always been commonplace.  The fact that you are a woman is a total irrelevance too.  It's entirely possible that you are being paid more than whoever was previously doing your job at your new employer.

Your old employer may well not have been able to afford a payrise for all employees, but has no choice but the pay a competitive salary to fill a role externally.

Jaybee_16

As others have said, on the basis of your post there is no discrimination. You have successfully applied for another role so you've mentally left this company already, so just move on to the new job. 

RogerBareford

lancstulip said:

I am extremely experienced and over qualified for the job to boot so they couldn’t justify the higher rate offered on those grounds either. 

Being "extremely experienced" doesn't necessarily mean your better at the job than others. I see it all the time in my industry where some people are just naturally better than others at certain jobs/tasks even though they have exactly the same amount of training and experience.

Also being "over qualified" often doesn't mean much in most jobs when your actually doing it. Qualifications are good to allow you to get jobs but once your in them it doesn't make much difference if you know far more than you need to do your job.

If you want to justify more money you need to demenostrate your better at your job and more efficient at your job than is expected that's what the employers care about; things that actually help the business.

diystarter7

lancstulip said:

I am extremely experienced and over qualified for the job to boot so they couldn’t justify the higher rate offered on those grounds either. 

Over qualified, over experienced, was this why they did not tell you about the next new staff member being paid a lot more than you, did that not deliver some type of message to you? If not, let me help.. 

Where I worked half the staff at leasy had many more/higher qualifications than me, most were much more experienced as they'd spent 10/20 years in that line of work but guess what - more often than not I could do what they did in lets say 8 visits to a client I could do in 4/5.   It's  all about being effective, decisive, pro-active and not making a meal out of it. The aforementioned is just an example and I'n not saying you are like that. 

So why do you think they are letting such a great, overqualified person like you go and then add insult to injury pay the other person a lot more?

Good luck in your new job.

GentleGiant01

lancstulip said:

I feel that it’s because I’m female which would most definitely be discrimination! 

You “feel” that way - but it is very unlikely to be true. We are in a different world to what we were in 5 year ago. If they advertised your role today at your salary, I almost guarantee they’d have a tough job filling it. It’s not nice by any stretch but you will always get better payrises by job hoping. My wife is on 5-10k more than some of her male co-workers because she applied for the job after covid, and believe me - some of them are livid about it!  

Takeaway_Addict

lancstulip said:

I am extremely experienced and over qualified for the job to boot so they couldn’t justify the higher rate offered on those grounds either. 

not experienced or good enough to want to keep you though so maybe you don't click as well as you think with the company and they want a fresh start?

Elliott.T123

This is going to happen more and more in the current market.
I am seeing it already as a recruiter.

Companies are losing staff and discovering that the market is moving quickly so instead of paying the same salary to replace someone they are having to increase the salary to tempt people to apply.

The other thing that is happening is far more counter offers when people do resign. Companies realise that they will have to pay more and spend time training a new starter so are counter offering people to stay.