Dispute over EU regulation

Salaries of women and men become transparent

Eva-Maria Burger, head of AK Frauenpolitik, wants to make companies with 25 or more employees obliged to disclose salary differences.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/AK Wien, Lisi Specht, stock.adobe.com)

An EU directive is causing a stir between the Chamber of Labor and the Chamber of Commerce: it obliges companies with 100 or more employees to prepare income reports from mid-2026. This should make salary differences between women and men visible. The AK even wants the obligation to apply to companies with 25 employees or more.

Women in Austria currently earn 18.4 percent less than men - per hour. The EU average is around 13 percent. This puts Austria in second worst place in the EU, with only Estonia having a larger gender pay gap. The EU has declared war on this gender pay gap: from mid-2026, companies in all member states will have to regularly prepare income reports showing the difference between women's and men's incomes. In Austria, this is now causing a dispute between the Chamber of Labor (AK) and the Economic Chamber (WKÖ).

Reporting obligation even for smaller companies?
According to the EU, only companies with 100 or more employees should be required to report. "But that would only be 0.7 percent of all companies in Austria," says Eva-Maria Burger, Head of AK Women's Policy, with a view to the small and medium-sized structure of our economy. Burger is therefore calling on the next government to go beyond the EU proposals and make companies with 25 employees or more liable.

Chamber of Commerce opposes more bureaucracy
Such "gold plating" (overfulfillment) is out of the question for the Chamber of Commerce. "We hope that the national implementation of the Wage Transparency Directive will be designed in such a way that it does not create more bureaucracy for domestic companies," says WKÖ spokesperson Robert Albrecht. "We are critical of extending the obligation to small and medium-sized enterprises. Experience has shown that this brings more bureaucracy, but no improvement in women's incomes."

The EU is taking action against the income gap between women and men.

(Bild: stock.adobe.com/Olga Yastremska, New Africa, Africa Studio)

In general, the WKÖ also supports the "goal of reducing the pay gap between men and women", says Albrecht. He emphasizes that "Austria is already very advanced in terms of wage transparency in international comparison".

So far, however, with little effect: while a man earns an average of 100 euros in Austria, a woman receives only 81.6 euros in the same period (see chart). Only 6.13 euros of this difference can be explained statistically, "for example because women work in lower-paid sectors and are less likely to be in management positions", says Burger. However, a further 12.27 euros of the income difference cannot be explained. Burger: "It is reasonable to assume that this is very clear pay discrimination."

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/stock.adobe.com)

"No employees are put in front of the curtain"
The EU directive is so important for changing this. It allows female employees, for example, to check: How much do male colleagues doing the same job or a job of equal value earn in the company? In the income reports, however, the data will be anonymized; there will be average values for men and women in specific professions in the company. Burger: "No individual employees will be put in front of the curtain."

The Ministry of Economics and Labor will set up a monitoring office to pool the data. When asked by Krone, Minister Martin Kocher's cabinet said: "The directive will be implemented in time for the implementation deadline in June 2026. Technical preparations are currently underway at specialist level and talks are being held with the social partners."