Address income gaps to improve economy

One of the greatest issues facing global workplaces at the moment is that of income inequality, which the OECD believes is essential to economic success. Its working paper, titled Trends in income inequality and its impact on economic growth, highlighted several factors that are encouraging the gap to widen.

Education is one area that needs to be looked into, as the OECD argues that a lack of investment in this area is reducing equality even further.

"This compelling evidence proves that addressing high and growing inequality is critical to promote strong and sustained growth and needs to be at the centre of the policy debate," said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria.

Mr Gurria argued that countries promoting equal opportunities will be the most likely to be able to grow moving into the future, which in turn will see their economies prosper. A rise in inequality has potential to cause further problems for certain nations.

The September Wage Price Index from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) pointed to a rise in wages across both the private and public sector. The former witnessed a 0.6 per cent seasonally-adjusted rise in wages, while public sector workers added 0.5 per cent to their pay packets.

Companies can make use of payroll software to ensure their workers are not only being paid fairly and frequently, but also that their tax obligations are being met.

The OECD claims that Mexico and New Zealand have seen their economic growth hindered by around ten percentage points as a result of rising inequality over the past 20 years. Cumulative growth in the US and UK could have been as many as nine percentage points higher if this disparity had not been allowed to rise.

Greater equality has helped support economic expansion in some other nations, including the likes of Spain and France.