There are still those who deny it, but it is a fact that women suffer discrimination in the world of work. And, for example, the cases of Monica and Xin, two women who have found work thanks to the employment shuttle financed with European funds, and whose stories you can learn in the video above. This project is an example of how the European Union is working for equality between women and men. But in addition, the European Commission has just approved a transparency proposal that wants to curb the gender pay gap.
At 50 years old, Mónica Achaval thought that she would never return to the labor market. In fact, she was unemployed for eight months after closing a business. I send resumes. Unsuccessfully. That, as is normal, demoralized her: “You think it’s going to be impossible because of age and other conditions.”
But then he got in touch with the Conecta Empleo shuttle, a program that has helped more than 19,000 people to find employmentand through her he got his current job in the company that had not previously opened its doors to him.
Conecta Empleo also helped Xin Xing find a job in a human resources department. An illness separated her from the world of work, and then, when she wanted to find a job, she spent months searching, without success: “You start with a good attitude, but then the market doesn’t respond to you,” she explains to laSexta.
Two very specific profiles, that of long-term unemployed women, who find it even more difficult to find work, as Natalia Serrano, director of the Santa María la Real Foundation, explains: “This situation usually occurs between the ages of 30 and 45 , which is the stage of care in which many women are left unemployed“.
The clear accounts to end the wage gap
But not only access, but once inside, there is a salary difference between women and men. And the EU wants to stop it through transparency.
The pay gap is at 14.1% in Europe and 9.4% in Spain. In some countries, such as Latvia or Estonia, this difference is greater than 20%, as the following map shows.
To achieve this, the EU wants to make use of salary transparency, and it has shown this in the recent proposal for directive being negotiated by the Europarliament. Companies are going to have to report on the salaries they pay their employees. The objective, explains the MEP (United We Can) Maria Eugenial Palop, is that “workers know whether or not there is a wage gap.” Something that at the moment is “opaque”, she points out.
The EU proposes that companies have to inform which of the salary they offer already in the vacancy announcement, and that companies with more than 250 employees publish information internally and externally on salary differences. If it is detected that this difference exceeds 5%, the companies will have to evaluate it with the workers’ representatives.
In addition, you want ban to employers ask how much they have been paid in previous jobs and compensation is provided for those who suffer discrimination based on gender.
In the proposal, the Commission recalls that the right to equal pay for women and men for equal work or work of equal value is one of the founding principles of the European Union enshrined in the Treaty of Rome.
Source: Lasexta
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
