WGEA employer-level gender pay gap publication

What changed in 2023

The Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Act 2023 (Cth) introduced significant changes to the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 (Cth). This amending Act received Royal Assent on 30 March 2023 and enables the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) to publish employer-level gender pay gaps. WGEA gender pay gap publication

The new reporting requirement applies to non-public sector employers with 100 or more employees. This means that, for the first time, individual employers’ gender pay gap data will be publicly available.

Publication of employer-level data for the public sector is scheduled to commence in 2024-25.

How the published gaps are calculated

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) publishes both median and mean gender pay gap data. Specifically, the median total remuneration gender pay gap and the median base salary gender pay gap are reported. Alongside these, the mean total remuneration and mean base salary gaps are also made publicly available.

These gaps are calculated using data submitted by employers, and are presented for full-time, part-time, and casual employees. All employees are annualised to a full-time equivalent for the purposes of calculating these figures.

In addition to remuneration and salary gaps, WGEA also publishes information relating to bonus pay, presented in quartile form.

The Employer Statement and CEO sign-off

From the 2024-25 reporting period, employers are required to submit an Employer Statement alongside their public report. This Statement provides a space for employers to contextualise their reported gender pay gap data and to describe any actions they are undertaking to address it.

The Employer Statement will be published alongside the employer’s pay gap data on the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s (WGEA) data explorer, making it publicly accessible.

A further requirement from the 2024-25 reporting period is that the CEO or equivalent of the employer must sign off on the submitted report.

Compliance and consequences

Failure to comply with the WGEA’s gender pay gap reporting obligations can result in being named on the WGEA’s non-compliant list under section 19D of the Act. This public listing highlights non-compliance to stakeholders.

Employers identified as non-compliant may face restrictions on accessing government support. Specifically, they may be ineligible to compete for Commonwealth Government contracts and certain Commonwealth grants and financial assistance.

From the 2024-25 reporting period, employers with 500 or more employees must also have policies or strategies in place addressing each of the six gender equality indicators to ensure compliance.