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Why companies in Spain must now make their employees’ salaries public

Since April 14th 2021, all businesses in Spain have to publish their workers' salaries, a measure aimed at closing the country's gender pay gap. Here's how the salary register is done, how equal pay audits will be carried out and what the fines are for not abiding by the new law.

Why companies in Spain must now make their employees' salaries public
An office in pre-pandemic times. Photo: FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP

More requirements and obligations are increasingly being imposed by Spanish legislators on companies.

If the battery of measures published during the COVID-19 period had not been enough, more workload has now been imposed on employers as a result of the publication of Royal Decree 902/2020 of 13 October on equal pay for women and men, which entered into force on April 14th 2021.

The Decree sets out the obligation that all companies must keep a salary register, although this has been imposed since March 8th 2019, and that only the companies with an equality plan must have an equal pay audit, which entered into force on April 14th 2021.

The Decree is aimed at both implementing article 28 of the Consolidated Text of the Workers’ Statute (Salary register) and imposing the obligation to conduct an equal pay audit on the companies required to carry out an equality plan.

Salary register

The Royal Decree sets out measures to make the right to equal treatment and non-discrimination effective between women and men in terms of salaries, developing mechanisms to identify, correct and combat salary discrimination, and fostering the necessary conditions.

The regulation is aimed at the employment relations regulated in the Workers’ Statute, so it will be applied to all the ordinary and special employment relations.

Article 28.2 of the Workers’ Statute (its amendment entered into force on 08 March 19) states that all companies must keep a salary register of all their workforce, including managerial and senior positions.

In this case, I understand that the salaries of the directors or members of the board of directors should not be registered as a result of the exclusion set out in article 1.3 of the Workers’ Statute regarding the directors or members of the board of directors of the companies taking the legal form of corporations and provided that such activities in the company only involve the performance of tasks inherent to that position.

The register is aimed at ensuring equal pay transparency in a faithful and updated way and providing appropriate access to the companies’ salary information regardless of their size by drafting a breakdown of their average data.

Therefore, the register must include the average values for the salaries, salary bonuses and non-salary items of the workforce, broken down by gender and set out in accordance with article 28.2 of the Workers’ Statute.

Photo: Gino Crescoli/Pixabay

How can this be done?

To draft the salary register, we must duly provide a breakdown of the arithmetic mean and median by gender of the annual gross amount that is received by each professional group, professional category, level, position or any other applicable classification system established by the company. That information must also be broken down based on the nature of the remuneration, including the base salary, all the salary bonuses and all the non-salary items, differentiating each amount.

Regarding the workers’ access to the salary register, the regulation states that, if the workers do not have legal representation, the information provided will not be the average data for the effective amounts of the items included in the register, but the percentage differences regarding the average amounts for men and women, broken down based on the nature of the remuneration and the applicable classification system.

If the workers have legal representatives at the company, the workers will access the salary register through them and be entitled to know its full content.

The workers’ legal representation must be consulted at least ten days before drafting the salary register and any subsequent amendments.

What period must be referenced in the register? In this case, the register will refer to one calendar year (from 1 January to 31 December), notwithstanding any necessary amendments if there are substantial changes or alterations in any of the items included in the register. Here I understand that the legislator aims to maintain the register updated every month since it will change every time the salary is paid, except for companies that do not change the salary and maintain the same staff and in the same number.

What will be the format for the register? Article 5.5 of Royal Decree 902/2020 states that the format set out in the official websites of the Ministry of Labour and Social Economy and the Ministry of Equality can be used.

To end this section, if the salary register shows a difference of 25% or more in the average salaries paid to its female workers compared to its male workers, referring to the total wage bill or to the average of the amounts paid, the companies with at least 50 workers have a further obligation, i.e. they must justify the difference for reasons other than the gender of their workers.

In short, the register must include all the amounts received by the workers, whether they are salary or non-salary items, differentiating by gender, professional classification, and composition:

  • Salary bonuses.
  • Non-salary items
Photo: Pau BARRENA /AFP

Each amount must be detailed separately, breaking down the remuneration data by professional group, professional category or position of a similar nature or equal value, with the objective that, the greater the detail, the simpler the comparison, so the reasons for the pay gap can be identified and corrective measures can be sought.

Once we have such data, we can seek and show only the arithmetic means and medians of the amounts received by the workers. The mean is the average of all the values, i.e. the quantitative salary items divided by the number of people comprising such data, while the median is the amount in the middle of a group of people, i.e. if there are ten people in a professional group, the amount is that provided by number five.

Equal pay audit

The companies that draft an equality plan (whether they are required to do so) must include an equal pay audit in that plan. Therefore, that obligation is only linked to the equality plans already drafted by the companies, even if they are not required to do this, or which are required to draft them.

The obligation to draft equality plans is for companies with 50 workers or more, although there is a transitional period whereby:

Companies with between 150 and 250 workers on 8 March 2020 are required to have drafted an equality plan.
Companies with between 100 and 150 workers, on 8 March 2021.
Companies with between 50 and 100 workers, on 8 March 2022.

The concept of an equal pay audit is targeted to companies that draft equality plans, which must include an equal pay audit. The purpose is to obtain the necessary information to check whether the company’s remuneration system fully complies in a cross-sectional way with the effective implementation of the principle of equality between women and men in terms of salaries.

It must also define the needs to avoid, correct and prevent existing obstacles and difficulties or those which may exist with the aim of ensuring equal pay and transparency and monitoring that remuneration system.

Its validity will be the same as that detailed in the equality plan, unless a smaller period is set out in that section.

Content: the audit requires prior analytical work, which is linked to the salary registers that the companies are required to have, so that this can be analysed and expanded upon with the aim of diagnosing the points set out below.

Article 8 of Royal Decree 902/2020 states that the equal pay audit implies a number of obligations for the company:

Job assessments, in accordance with article 4 of that Royal Decree, whereby the salary register already differentiates the nature of the workers’ functions or tasks; their education, i.e. their qualifications; their professional and training conditions; and the working conditions so that they can perform their activity. Therefore, the job assessments are aimed at making an overall estimate of all the factors involved or which may be involved in a job and giving a score or numerical value to the job. The assessment must refer to each task and function of each job at the company.

The importance of other factors which lead to salary differences, and any potential deficiencies or inequalities noticed in the design and use of the company’s work-life balance and shared responsibility measures, or the difficulties encountered by workers in their professional or financial promotions arising from other factors such as discretionary business actions.

As a result, an action plan should be established to correct salary inequalities, setting out the objectives, specific actions and timelines and designating the persons to implement and monitor it.

In collaboration with the most representative trade union and employer organisations, the Institute for Women and Equal Opportunities will draft a technical guide with indicators for conducting the equal pay audits.

A job assessment procedure will also be approved through an order issued at the joint proposal of the Ministry for Labour and Social Economy and the Ministry for Equality within six months of the entry into force of Royal Decree 902/2020 (ending on 14 April 21).

Aerial view of Madrid’s Paseo de la Castellana, the capital’s business district. PHOTO: GERARD JULIEN/AFP

The penalties for not keeping a salary register

Failure to comply with the obligation to keep a salary register is classified as a serious breach under Royal Decree 6/2019 of 1 March, on urgent measures to ensure equal treatment and opportunities between women and men in employment and occupation, in accordance with article 7.13 of the Act on Employment Breaches and Penalties.

Broadly speaking, the minimum penalty is €626, and the maximum is €6,250. The company can also be penalised for keeping a salary register with wrong or incomplete information, not complying with the business duty of submitting the salary register to the legal representatives of the company’s workers, not submitting the register or audit to the negotiating committee for the equality plan, or not complying with the notice of at least ten days for the prior consultation with the workers’ representatives regarding the drafting of the salary register.

We remind you of the obligation to draft equality plans, without forgetting the salary register and the equal pay audit. For 2021, the companies required to have an equality plan, which must be implemented as from 8 March 2021, are those with between 100 and 150 workers.

We also inform you that our Employment Law Department specialises in drafting equality plans and the mandatory salary register. Contact us.

This article was written by Luis San José Gras, a partner in Employment law at international law firm AGM Abogados, based in Barcelona. 

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JOBS

The best websites to look for jobs in Spain

If you’re looking for your next career challenge in Spain or indeed are new to the country and are looking for employment, here are some of the best websites to look for jobs.

The best websites to look for jobs in Spain

Unless you’re retired or moving to Spain to retire, one of the most important things you’ll need to do when you first arrive, or even before you arrive, is to look for a job. It can be a little daunting knowing where to look when you’re in a new country, but we’ve got you covered with some of the best job websites in Spain.

Or perhaps you’ve lived here for several years and are looking to take on new career responsibilities and improve your prospects. If you always get stuck looking at the same job sites, you may want to take look below and broaden your options. 

READ ALSO: Not just English teaching: The jobs you can do in Spain without speaking Spanish

The Local Jobs

Did you know that at The Local we also have our own job site? You can find it under the jobs tab under the logo on the homepage and choose from careers in Spain including education & teaching, software engineering, sales and customer service. Most of the job descriptions are written in English too, so it’s one of the best places to look if your Spanish is not quite up to scratch yet.  

InfoJobs

InfoJobs continues to be the leading job search portal in Spain, ever since it was launched in 1988. It’s the best place to start when searching for a job here, with listings of thousands of vacancies across the country and across various industries too. Large corporations such as Telefónica, Clece and Sacyr publish hundreds of job offers daily. It also allows you to set various filters when searching, including work-from-home and hybrid positions.

Infoempleo

Infoempleo enables users to register for free and upload their CVs to the site. If you can understand Spanish, the blog section is particularly helpful with several articles with tips and news related to employment in Spain. They also have a section on courses and study centres throughout the country, in case you need to brush up on your skills first.

LinkedIn

One of the most comprehensive jobs sites out there, LinkedIn is of course one of the best places to search for jobs worldwide, not just in Spain. You can select the search terms for the jobs you want, as well as preferred locations. As many of you are probably already aware, LinkedIn is not only great for searching for jobs, but of course for making professional connections online and putting your CV online, so that potential recruiters can search you out too.

Laboris

One of the most important online employment agencies in Spain, the site allows companies to sign up and publish their first two job offers for free. It also has a geolocation service that allows candidates to know which jobs are closest to their homes.

Indeed

Indeed, allows you to search through thousands of jobs online to find your next career move and has several tools to help you such as improving your CV.  One of the best aspects of it is it has thousands of opinions from users and candidates who have already had the experience of working for the same company or have already been through the interview process.

Trabajamos

Trabajamos is a social employment site that is ideal for those who are self-employed, with more than 60,000 users and 13,000 job ads published. Under the section ‘Demands and services’ professionals from all fields have the opportunity to upload a professional description about themselves, a photo and details on what they charge per hour for certain services.

El País / Monster

The joint initiative of the newspaper El País and the American employment portal, Monster is another great option. As well as searching, the page allows you to save the jobs you’re most interested in so you can look at them any time and don’t have to search again. It also enables you to upload your CV and see which companies are interested or have been looking at it.

Adecco

The Adecco website covers both employment and career guidance and is specialised in Human Resources. As well as being a job site, it also has 280 offices throughout Spain. The company focuses on certain sectors in particular and is best for jobs in hospitality, audio-visual, logistics, motoring and transport.  

Milanuncios

Milanuncios is not solely a job website, it’s also a place to look for second-hand items for sale, search for professional services or even find apartments for rent. It does have a section on employment, however, which allows candidates and companies to get in contact with each other directly. Be aware though, that there can be some job scams posted on the site, so look out for any positions that sound too good to be true or ask you to pay any money in order to apply.  

Noticiastrabajo

Noticiastrabajo specialises in employment, labour rights, economy, benefits and admin. Job boards are published daily with offers from large multinationals such as Mercadona, Leroy Merlin, Bricomart, Decathlon and Primark, among many other leading companies looking to recruit. One of the best parts about it is that it clearly states accurate salaries, the number of hours and how to send your CV. It even gives you tips on how to pass the job interview.

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