Women in EU losing billions yearly over failure to implement gender pay transparency laws

According to a new analysis from the European Trade Union Institute (EUTI), Ireland is one of 23 EU member states that have so far failed to implement the EU Pay Transparency Directive before the deadline of June 7.

Women in the EU are losing billions of euros because of a failure to swiftly implement new gender pay transparency laws, equating to more than €600 annually being left on the table for the average female worker.

According to a new analysis from the European Trade Union Institute (EUTI), Ireland is one of 23 EU member states that have so far failed to implement the EU Pay Transparency Directive before the deadline of June 7.

The gender pay gap, which is the difference in average hourly wages between men and women, in the EU currently stands at 11%. 

The EUTI analysis said if the pay gap were to be reduced by 10%, the EU’s 43 million working women covered under the new directive would be €28bn better off.

A 10% reduction would also mean the average female worker would earn an additional €628 annually, according to the analysis.

The new directive, which was formulated in 2023, would force employers to share information on salaries and enforce changes if their gender pay gap was larger than 5% without justification.

Employers with over 100 employees must publish information on their gender pay gap and publicly advertise the starting salary or pay range for new positions.

Employees will be able to receive further information on their individual pay level and the average pay levels, broken down by sex, for categories of workers doing the same work.

"The cost of pay transparency measures is small for companies, but this analysis shows that inaction by national governments will cost women workers billions in lost wages,” said European Trade Union Congress (ETUC) general secretary Esther Lynch.

“This is completely unacceptable when women have already suffered decades of pay discrimination.” 

ETUC deputy general secretary Isabelle Schömann said the failure of governments to implement the directives is “an affront to the rule of law".

“Any government which continues to avoid their legal responsibility to put this directive into action can expect to be taken to court. The ETUC will stand by the side of women workers and defend their right to equal pay,” Ms Schömann said.

A previous report by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions said women in Ireland will lose more than €570m because of the delay in the implementation of the EU directive.

Equality minister Norma Foley said the gender pay directive portal was hoped to be operational by November via a phased approach. 

She said progress had been stalled due to work in transposing existing gender pay gap laws onto the EU directive.

Companies that are currently deemed out of step with the gender pay directive will not be punished until the portal becomes fully operational.