Spain: New EU Rules on Wage Gap

On 17 May 2007, the Official Journal of the European Union published Directive 2023/970. The new directive, which will soon be transposed in Spain, introduces new provisions to strengthen the principle of equal pay for men and women and to increase pay transparency. These include:

• Pre-employment salary transparency, ensuring that prospective employees have access to clear information about compensation before applying.
• Employers will no longer be permitted to ask candidates about their salary history, a common practice that will be prohibited under the new legislation.
• Companies will be required to ensure that job advertisements are gender-neutral and free from any form of discrimination.

In addition, companies will have to make their pay setting and pay progression policy available to their employees. Moreover, employees will also have a right to information about their level of pay.
Companies with more than 100 employees are required to provide information on any existing pay gaps. Moreover, a pay review may be carried out with employee representatives if there is a gender pay gap of more than 5%.