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 is intended to make salary differences between women and men visible. The AK even wants this requirement for companies with 25 or more employees.
Women in Austria currently earn 18.4 percent less than men per hour. The EU average is around 13 percent. Austria is therefore in second place in the EU, only in Estonia the pay gap between men and women is larger. The EU has declared war on these gender pay gaps: from mid-2026, companies in all member states will have to produce regular income reports showing the difference between women’s and men’s earnings. This is now causing a dispute in Austria between the Chamber of Labor (AK) and the Chamber of Commerce (WKÖ).
Reporting obligation also for smaller companies?
According to the EU, only companies with 100 or more employees should file a declaration. “But that would be only 0.7 percent of all companies in Austria,” says Eva-Maria Burger, head of the AK Women’s Policy, in view of the small and medium-sized structure of our economy. Burger therefore calls on the next government to go beyond the EU templates and make companies with 25 or more employees responsible.
Chamber of Commerce defends itself against more bureaucracy
There is no such ‘gold plating’ (overfulfillment) for the Chamber of Commerce. “We hope that the national implementation of the pay transparency directive will be designed in such a way that it does not entail more bureaucratic efforts for domestic companies,” said WKÖ spokesman Robert Albrecht. “We are critical of extending the obligation to small and medium-sized businesses. Experience shows that this means more bureaucracy, but no improvement in women’s incomes.”
Overall, the WKÖ also supports the “goal of reducing the gender pay gap,” Albrecht said. He emphasizes that “Austria has already come a long way in international comparison when it comes to pay transparency.”
However, so far it has had little effect: while a man here earns an average of 100 euros, a woman receives only 81.6 euros in the same period (see graph). 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 end up in management positions,” says Burger. However, another 12.27 euros of the income difference cannot be explained. Burger: “The assumption is that there is clearly wage discrimination.”
“No employees are put in front of the curtain”
The EU directive is so important that something changes. For example, it makes it possible for female employees to check: how much do male colleagues who perform the same or equivalent position in the company earn? However, in the income reports the data will be anonymized; there will be average values for men and women in specific occupations in the company. Burger: “No individual employees are put in front of the curtain.”
To bundle the data, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Labor will set up a measuring point. In response to a ‘Krone’ request, Minister Martin Kocher’s office said: ‘The directive will be implemented in time for the implementation deadline in June 2026. Technical preparations are currently taking place at specialist level and discussions are underway with social partners.”
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
