TLDR: Swiss groups that recruit for their European subsidiaries will soon have to show candidates the starting pay for a role, and the Swiss equal-pay analysis they already run supplies most of the groundwork.
The European Union directive gives every job applicant a right to starting pay information
The European Union (EU) adopted Directive (EU) 2023/970 on 10 May 2023 “to strengthen the application of the principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value between men and women through pay transparency and enforcement mechanisms”. It applies, in the words of Article 2(1), “to employers in public and private sectors”, and it reaches every worker with an employment contract or employment relationship under the law of a member state. A Swiss parent company with a subsidiary in Lyon, Munich or Milan is therefore covered through that subsidiary, because the subsidiary is the employer of record.
The obligation that reaches recruiters first sits in Article 5. Under Article 5(1), “Applicants for employment shall have the right to receive, from the prospective employer, information about” “the initial pay or its range”, based on objective, gender-neutral criteria, together with any relevant provisions of a collective agreement. The same paragraph says how: the information “shall be provided in a manner such as to ensure an informed and transparent negotiation on pay, such as in a published job vacancy notice, prior to the job interview or otherwise”. Article 5(2) closes the other door in the negotiation: “An employer shall not ask applicants about their pay history during their current or previous employment relationships.”
Those two sentences change the opening of every EU search. The range travels with the role from the first contact, and the question about current salary, a reflex in many recruitment conversations, leaves the script. For a Swiss headquarters that runs regional hiring from Basel, Zug or the Lake Geneva region, the change lands on the team that writes the brief, prices the role and briefs the search firm, which is usually the Swiss team.
Member states have until 7 June 2026 to turn the directive into national law
A directive binds employers through national legislation. Article 34(1) sets the deadline: member states “shall bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with this Directive by 7 June 2026”. As of January 2026, that date sits five months ahead, and the drafting is uneven. Jones Day’s November 2025 review notes that “many Member States have not yet published draft legislation or indicated that implementation may be delayed, meaning that the transposition deadline is unlikely to be met”.
Late national laws leave the substance of the directive intact. They shift the date on which a specific candidate in a specific country can invoke the right, and they add national detail on format, sanctions and the role of works councils. The same review adds that “These rules will also affect non-EU multinationals with operations in Europe”. A Swiss group with entities in several member states can expect a staggered start, country by country, and the sensible planning date for job architecture work remains June 2026, because the core rules are fixed in the directive itself.
Employers should take advice from employment counsel in each country where they hire on their own contracts, job advertisements and pay policies, because the national laws implementing the directive set the final wording.
Pay reporting starts in 2027 for the largest entities and depends on headcount
Article 9 sets a second obligation, the pay gap report, with a timetable that depends on the number of workers in the employing entity. The directive text sets the dates directly: “Employers with 250 workers or more shall, by 7 June 2027 and every year thereafter” report on the indicators listed in the article, while employers with 150 to 249 workers report by the same date and then every three years, and employers with 100 to 149 workers report first by 7 June 2031 and then every three years.
| Workers in the European Union (EU) employer | First report due | Then |
|---|---|---|
| 250 or more | 7 June 2027 | every year |
| 150 to 249 | 7 June 2027 | every three years |
| 100 to 149 | 7 June 2031 | every three years |
The report carries a consequence. Article 10(1) requires a joint pay assessment with workers’ representatives when three conditions meet: the reporting “demonstrates a difference in the average pay level between female and male workers of at least 5 %” in any category of workers, the employer has failed to justify that difference on objective, gender-neutral criteria, and the employer has left it unremedied within six months of submitting the report. The assessment then becomes a structured exercise with the workforce, with corrective measures attached.
Litigation risk moves as well. Article 18(1) sets the rule on proof: once a worker establishes “facts from which it may be presumed that there has been direct or indirect discrimination”, “it shall be for the respondent to prove” that the pay rules were respected. Jones Day summarises the effect plainly: “the burden of proof shifts to the employer”. An employer whose pay structure is undocumented carries that burden with very little to show.
What does the directive mean for a company headquartered in Switzerland?
Switzerland sits outside the EU, so a Swiss legal entity employing staff in Switzerland stays under Swiss law alone. The obligation follows the employing entity and the place of work. A Swiss group feels it in three places: in its EU subsidiaries, which become employers subject to national transposition laws; in group-wide pay architecture, because the criteria used in a French or German entity are often set by a reward team in Switzerland; and in recruitment, because a single search brief frequently covers a role in Switzerland and a parallel role in an EU affiliate.
The third point is where the friction shows first. A Swiss vacancy and an EU vacancy for the same commercial or digital role can sit in the same applicant tracking system, use the same job description and be filled by the same search partner. From mid-2026, the EU version must state starting pay or a range to the candidate, and the Swiss version may stay silent. Two candidates in the same process then hold different information, and the Swiss candidate can usually read the EU advertisement. Running two disclosure regimes inside one search is possible, and it is also the fastest way to expose inconsistencies in how a group prices the same work.
The Swiss Gender Equality Act already requires a pay analysis from employers with 100 staff
Swiss employers start with an advantage. Since 1 July 2020 the revised Federal Act on Gender Equality (GEA) has required a pay analysis from larger employers. Article 13a(1) GEA provides that “Employers who employ 100 or more employees at the start of any year shall conduct an internal equal pay analysis for that year”, with apprentices excluded from the count. Article 13a(3) adds that an employer whose analysis shows the requirements are met is exempt from further analyses.
The Federal Office for Gender Equality (FOGE) describes how the cycle has run so far: companies with 100 or more employees had to complete the first internal analysis “by the end of June 2021 at the latest”, have it formally evaluated and inform employees and shareholders of the result. Employers whose first analysis showed unmet requirements “shall repeat the analysis after four years (Art. 13a para 2 GEA)”, and the office notes that “Employers may be subject to the obligation to conduct an analysis until 2032.” The federal government provides the standard analysis tool, Logib, free of charge.
Compliance with the Swiss rules has been patchy. A report by the Federal Office of Justice, covered by Keystone-SDA in March 2025, found that “More than half of the companies were not fulfilling their obligation”, and the Federal Council brought its effectiveness report on the measure forward to the end of 2027, from 2029. For a Swiss group that has run Logib properly, the EU directive asks for more of the same discipline. For a group that has treated the Swiss analysis as a box to tick, the EU timetable arrives with real disclosure and real litigation exposure.
The Swiss and EU regimes overlap on method and differ on disclosure
Both regimes rest on the same idea: pay differences between women and men must be explained by objective, gender-neutral factors. Both use a threshold of 100 employees, and both ask for a documented method. The differences sit in who sees the results and when. The Swiss analysis is internal, verified by an independent body and communicated to staff and shareholders. The EU regime adds information rights for individual applicants and workers, published or submitted pay gap indicators, and a joint assessment with worker representatives when the gap passes the threshold.
| Topic | Swiss Gender Equality Act | European Union (EU) Directive 2023/970 |
|---|---|---|
| Who | Employers with 100 or more employees | All employers; reporting from 100 workers |
| Applicants | Disclosure left to the employer | Starting pay or range; pay history question barred |
| Output | Internal analysis, verified, shared with staff | Pay gap report; joint assessment when a gap of 5% or more stays unjustified |
| Timing | First analysis by June 2021; may run until 2032 | National laws due 7 June 2026; first reports 2027 |
The two regimes measure related things in different ways, so a Logib result and an EU pay gap indicator for the same population can differ. The table is a planning aid for reward teams: it sets the thresholds and methods side by side, and the legal tests in each country stay with counsel.
The Swiss pay gap shows why candidates will read the numbers closely
The Federal Statistical Office (FSO) reported that the overall gap between women’s and men’s pay fell from 18.0% in 2020 to 16.2% in 2022, based on the Swiss Earnings Structure Survey. Coverage by Le News of the same release put the unexplained part at “8.4 percentage points of the 16.2% average difference”, with the remainder attributed to factors such as education, position and sector. That unexplained share is precisely what both regimes target.
Candidates in commercial, digital and brand-tech roles move between Swiss and EU employers more than most, and they compare offers across borders. A published range in an EU advertisement gives them a reference point for the Swiss role as well. Employers who already know where their ranges sit, and why, negotiate from a position of strength. Those who discover their own structure through a candidate’s question negotiate from behind.
One job architecture can serve the Swiss analysis and the EU disclosure
Edward Galle’s view, from searches that place commercial, digital and brand-tech hires for Swiss headquarters and their EU affiliates, is that the efficient answer is a single job architecture. The same role families, levels and criteria feed the Swiss Logib analysis, the EU pay criteria under Article 6, the EU reporting under Article 9 and the ranges shown to candidates under Article 5. Article 6(1) already points that way: “Employers shall make easily accessible to their workers the criteria that are used to determine workers’ pay, pay levels and pay progression. Those criteria shall be objective and gender neutral.”
A practical sequence follows from the timetable. The first step is a role map: every role the group recruits for in the EU, matched to a level and a role family that also exists in the Swiss structure. Digital roles need particular care here, because titles such as “marketing technologist”, “customer experience lead” or “revenue operations manager” describe very different scopes from one affiliate to the next. A title-based map hides those differences, while a map built on responsibilities, budget and reporting line exposes them.
The second step reuses the Swiss work. The Logib analysis already holds the factors a group considers legitimate pay drivers, such as education, experience and position. Those factors become the documented criteria the EU entities need, so the reward team writes them once and applies them in both regimes. Where the Swiss analysis found unexplained differences, the same differences will surface in EU reporting, and fixing them before 2027 is cheaper than defending them afterwards.
The third step publishes ranges for EU vacancies first, starting with the roles hired most often. Ranges that are too wide signal an absent structure, and ranges that are too narrow lock the employer into a single profile. Edward Galle’s view, for digital and commercial searches, is that a range that spans one job level, with a short note on what moves an offer within it, gives candidates usable information and leaves the hiring manager room to recognise a stronger profile.
The fourth step trains the people who talk to candidates. Hiring managers and recruiters in EU entities need a script that opens with the range and replaces the pay history question with a question about expectations. Search partners need the same brief. A Swiss headquarters that briefs one search firm across several countries should give that firm a single, consistent pay narrative for every jurisdiction involved.
Recruitment briefs written in Switzerland will carry the EU rules into every search
The directive changes how a mandate is written. A search brief for an EU role will carry the range from day one, and the candidate shortlist will be built against it. Searches that run across Switzerland and an EU affiliate at the same time will expose any gap between the two pay structures within a few weeks, because candidates talk to each other and to their networks. For roles where Swiss and EU candidates compete, a group can choose to show the Swiss range voluntarily, which turns a compliance requirement into a recruiting signal.
Edward Galle reads the directive as a reason to bring reward, talent acquisition and the search partner into one conversation early in 2026. Earlier Edward Galle analysis of compensation as a strategic choice at Nvidia showed how pay design shapes the talent a company attracts. Its overview of the regulatory load now carried by human resources (HR) teams placed pay equity among the obligations that keep growing, and its piece on non-financial benefits as a currency of work is a reminder that a published range is only part of the offer a candidate weighs.
Swiss groups that align their pay structure with the directive in the first half of 2026 will recruit in the EU from a stronger position
The timetable rewards early work. National laws are due by 7 June 2026, the first reports for larger entities follow a year later, and every EU vacancy opened after transposition will need a range. A Swiss group that maps its roles, reuses its Logib criteria and publishes defensible ranges before June will run its EU searches with consistent offers and a documented structure. The firms that wait will set ranges under time pressure, one vacancy at a time.
Edward Galle supports Swiss employers through specialist search and human resources consulting, including role mapping for digital and commercial teams. Candidates who want to see current roles can browse open positions or send a spontaneous application.
This article has been reviewed by Haider Alleg, Managing Partner at Kainjoo SA.
References
- European Parliament and Council. Directive (EU) 2023/970 to strengthen the application of the principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value between men and women through pay transparency and enforcement mechanisms. Official Journal of the European Union, 17 May 2023. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32023L0970
- Jones Day. EU Pay Transparency: What Employers Need to Know. November 2025. https://www.jonesday.com/fr/insights/2025/11/eu-pay-transparency-what-employers-need-to-know
- Swiss Confederation. Federal Act on Gender Equality, Article 13a (version in force from 1 July 2020). Lawbrary. https://lawbrary.ch/law/art/GLG-v2020.07-en-art-13a/print
- Federal Office for Gender Equality. Repetition of the wage equality analysis. 10 July 2025. https://www.ebg.admin.ch/en/repetition-of-the-wage-equality-analysis
- Keystone-SDA via blue News. Major implementation deficits in equal pay analyses. 7 March 2025. https://www.bluewin.ch/en/news/major-implementation-deficits-in-equal-pay-analyses-li.2594081
- Federal Statistical Office. Résultats de l’analyse des différences salariales entre femmes et hommes sur la base de l’enquête suisse sur la structure des salaires 2022. Press release 2024-0251, 2024. https://statistik.admin.ch/fr/news/2024-0251
- Le News. New data on Switzerland’s gender pay gap. 29 November 2024. https://lenews.ch/2024/11/29/new-data-on-switzerlands-gender-pay-gap/
- Edward Galle. Compensation as Strategy: What Leaders Can Learn from Nvidia’s Model. 19 August 2025. https://edwardgalle.com/compensation-as-strategy-what-leaders-can-learn-from-nvidias-model/
- Edward Galle. Navigating HR’s Regulatory Labyrinth. 6 August 2025. https://edwardgalle.com/navigating-hrs-regulatory-labyrinth/
- Edward Galle. Why Non-Financial Benefits Are Becoming the Real Currency of Work. 24 July 2025. https://edwardgalle.com/why-non-financial-benefits-are-becoming-the-real-currency-of-work/