A new law will come into force in Europe, making it illegal for employers to ask about current salaries of staff candidates during job interviews.
The law is one of the several measures to reduce the pay gap between men and women and should start being implemented by 2026 at the latest.
According to 2023 statistics from the Mediation Institute, the pay gap between men and women is now 10 per cent. Taking into consideration the differences in career choice, age, education and agreed working hours, there remains a questionable wage gap of 4,8 per cent.
European authorities argue that one of the reasons for the gap is the lack of transparency. Under the new directive, it will become forbidden for an employer to ask what one’s current salary is when applying for a new job. The employer will also have to inform about the starting salary before negotiation.
“The point is to have as even and good a negotiating position as possible by having access to more information. One of the novelties in the law is that the employee gets the right to pay information through the employer regardless of whether they are in the union or not,” said Erik Adell Hellström, Swedish Chancellor at the Ministry of Labour and Employment.
Today, all companies with more than 10 employees already need to carry out a salary survey to ensure there is no gender gap. But with the new law, companies with more than 100 employees will have to report this survey to a supervisory authority, which is proposed to be the Discrimination Ombudsman.
“Parts of the salary chart will then be made public. Pay discrimination is already prohibited today. The purpose of the changes is to make it easier to detect unfair wages by letting employees know what those with equivalent tasks in the workplace earn on average,” stated Hellström.
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