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Facebook, Apple and LinkedIn join White House initiative to close the gender pay gap

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By Rebecca Stewart, Trends Editor

August 29, 2016 | 3 min read

Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and IBM are the latest companies to sign the dotted line on the White House's Equal Pay Pledge, which aims to close the gender pay gap.

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Facebook has inked a pledge to help close the gender pay gap / Facebook

The tech companies were among 28 new companies who signed up to the initiative to mark Woman's Equality Day on Friday 26 August.

The newly-committed firms join 29 other companies who have vowed to take steps towards equal pay for men and women back in June, including Airbnb, Jet.com, Pinterest and Spotify.

Introduced by Obama, the pledge seeks to acknowledge the role businesses have to play in reducing the pay gap, and have them commit to conducting annual reviews on the issue.

In the US, woman in full-time employment typically only early 79 percent of what an average man working full-time all year earns. To tackle this, companies like Facebook and Spotify have also promised to review their hiring and promotion processes to remove unconscious bias and take other steps to promote "best practices" to close the national wage gap.

According to the White House, Facebook said in a statement: "At Facebook we value those who bring varying perspectives, for many reasons including background, community, culture, race, ethnicity - and gender.

"We call this cognitive diversity, and we want more of it. It propels our mission: to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected."

Meanwhile, Apple said it has spent the past year looking at compensation for its US employees and closing any gaps it found.

"We’ve achieved pay equity in the United States for similar roles and performance. Women employees at Apple earn one dollar for every dollar male employees earn. We’re now analyzing the salaries, bonuses, and annual stock grants of all our employees worldwide. If a gap exists, we’ll address it. And we’ll continue our work to make sure we maintain pay equity," a spokesperson added.

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