New Zealand to require 900 large companies to report gender pay gap

Sydney, Australia, Aug 11 (EFE).- The New Zealand government will ask 900 large companies to report their gender pay gap as a first step to achieving wage parity and improving the conditions of women workers.

“Requiring companies to publish their gender pay gap will encourage them to address the drivers of those gaps and increase transparency for workers,” Minister for Women Jan Tinetti said in a statement on Friday.

Around 900 entities with more than 250 employees will first be required to report their pay gap, and then after four years, this will increase to almost 2,700 entities with fewer employees.

“Action plans will be voluntary at the start, and we will review this after three years to determine whether it needs to be made mandatory,” said Associate Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety Priyanca Radhakrishnan.

Some 200 large companies, such as Air New Zealand and the telecommunications giant Spark, have already started or committed to reporting their gender pay gap voluntarily, the statement said.

The median gender pay gap in New Zealand stood at 9.1 per cent in 2019, according to data released by the government statistics agency.

Neighboring Australia passed a law this year to require companies with 100 or more workers to disclose the wages of their employees from 2024.

The Australian measure is similar to those approved by the United Kingdom in 2017 and the European Union in 2021, which require companies with more than 250 employees to report the difference in the earnings between male and female staff.

According to last year’s World Economic Forum annual report, the global gender gap, which had been slowly increasing since 2009, worsened with the pandemic and in 2022 fell to its lowest level since the body starting keeping records 16 years ago. EFE

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