Soon it will be illegal for employers to ask about your current salary in a job interview. It is one of several measures to reduce the wage gap between men and women in a new EU directive – which will become Swedish law by 2026 at the latest.
According to statistics from the Mediation Institute, the pay gap between men and women is 10 percent. If differences in career choice, age, education and agreed working hours are taken into account, there remains an unexplained wage gap of 4.8 percent, according to figures from 2023.
One of the obstacles to the pay gap not reducing is said to be a lack of transparency. The EU has therefore developed a pay transparency directive to strengthen the principle of equal pay for equal work.
The directive means that it becomes impermissible for an employer to ask what one’s current salary is when applying for a new job. The employer must also inform about the starting salary or salary scale for a position before salary negotiation. It will also be illegal to prohibit an employee from telling you what you earn.
– 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, says Erik Adell Hellström, chancellor at the Ministry of Labor and Employment.
“It will be easier to discover unreasonable salaries”
Even today, all companies with more than 10 employees need to carry out a salary survey where the employer must assess whether the salary differences between women and men have a connection with gender. But with the directive, companies with over 100 employees will have to report the 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.
You also have the right to compensation if you have been discriminated against.
– The consequence can be that you, either by reaching an agreement with your employer or going to court, are financially compensated.
One of those who have criticized the directive is Swedish Business, which believes that it may pose a threat to the Swedish model. But according to Erik Adell Hellström, the sole purpose is to get rid of salaries that are set on unreasonable grounds.
– There will still be different salaries, but they should not be based on, for example, gender or age, he says.
[su_note note_color=”#f3f3f3″]EU WAGE TRANSFER DIRECTIVE
On 24 April 2023, the council adopted new rules on transparency in salary setting.
This EU directive aims to combat pay discrimination and contribute to reducing the pay gap between women and men in the EU.
According to the new rules, companies in the EU will, among other things, have to provide information on wages and take measures if the wage gap between women and men exceeds 5%.
In May, an investigation into how the directive is to be implemented in Sweden was completed and is now out for consultation. Sweden then has until June 1, 2026, when the directive will enter into force at the latest, to prepare the directive for Swedish legislation.
Source: European Council[/su_note]
