Delivering equal pay: a new tool for employers

From principle to practice: the European Commission and EIGE launch the updated EU-wide guidelines on gender-neutral job evaluation and classification to help organisations ensure equal pay for work of equal value between women and men. This ultimately supports talent attraction and retention and boosts competitiveness.

“The Pay Transparency Directive, adopted in 2023, is an important step forward in addressing the gender pay gap more effectively, which still amounts to over 11% in the EU,” says Pinuccia Contino, Head of the Gender Equality Unit at the European Commission’s DG JUST.

“Supporting employers in this endeavour, and ensuring effective and timely implementation on the ground, is key.”

This is why the European Commission, together with EIGE, is stepping up support to employers through updated EU-wide guidelines on gender-neutral job evaluation and classification — helping turn legal obligations into practical action.

“To reap the benefits of pay transparency, companies will need to become fully aware of the value of the jobs in their organisations,” Pinuccia adds.

“Equal pay is not only about the same work. It is also about work that is different in nature, or that appears to be different but is, in fact, worth the same.”

This is where those hidden gaps begin to surface.

The principle of equal pay for the same work or work of equal value between women and men has been a founding principle of the European Union since the Treaty of Rome in 1957. It has been transposed into national legal systems of the Member States through secondary legislations and further clarified by the Court of Justice of the EU. However, gaps of regulatory nature and lack of awareness concerning the notion of ‘work of equal value’ persist – making the right to equal pay an inert legal provision.

How to fix pay discrimination and ensure equal pay 

The EU’s gender pay gap stands at over 11%. While this headline number is well known, what drives it is less visible.