A lack of transparency in salaries across most Australian workplaces has meant employers have had all the power when it comes to what they pay their male and female workers. But this is hopefully set to change with the Workplace Gender Equality Agency publishing for the first time the names of large private sector companies and the difference in what they pay men and women.

For a decade the agency has collected data from every employer with more than 100 workers, but until now has only released details of the overall gap between men and women and the differences by industry, but not the company’s identity. The change was brought about by amendments to the Workplace Gender Equality Act passed in 2023.

The data shows that while the pay gap has narrowed since last time, we still have a long way to go. And some industries are much worse than others. Construction and financial services had the biggest gap, with 25% and 24% respectively. Accommodation and food services had the smallest gap, but only because everybody is poorly paid.

Among our big employers, retailers had relatively small gaps, but mining companies big ones.

Economists Angela Jackson and Leonora Risse say publicising the information will help workers and pressure employers to try to fix any gender pay inequities.

“It equips employees with more information to take into their salary negotiations. This tackles the problem of "asymmetric information” where employers know where each worker sits on the pay scale, but employees don’t,’’ they write.

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