Equal pay for equal work

French companies will have three years to erase their gender pay gaps or face possible fines under plans presented by Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on March 7 to unions and employers.

Women in the European Union earned an average of 16 percent less than their male peers in 2016, official statistics agency Eurostat said Wednesday.

"For every euro that a man earned by the hour, a woman made an average of 84 cents," Eurostat said in a press release issued ahead of International Women's Day Thursday.

Cyprus is making steady progress in reducing the pay gap between men and women, data from the European statistical authority, Eurostat, showed on Wednesday.

According to figures for 2016, the unadjusted gender pay gap in Cyprus stood at 13.9 percent against an EU average of 16 percent, meaning that women earned 0.84 euros to every 1 euro made by a man.

A meeting of the High Level Group organized by the Ministry of Labor and the European Commission on gender equality will be held today and tomorrow in the National Palace of Culture.

Women working for the BBC have complained they were paid less than men in equivalent jobs and have accused managers of misleading them about their pay to hide widespread gender discrimination at the public broadcaster.

A new law making it illegal to pay men more than women has taken effect in Iceland.

The legislation, which came into force on Monday, the first day of 2018, makes Iceland the first country in the world to legalise equal pay between men and women.

In 2016 the average number of unemployed women in Bulgaria has decreased significantly.

If in 2015 the unemployed women in our country were over 180 thousand, in 2016 their number decreased to 156 462 or by nearly 26 thousand. For the same period, unemployed men fell to 128,255, or 20,340.

Turkey has the largest proportion of people working very long hours in the OECD, according to data compiled on May 1, Labor Day. 

In Turkey, some 39 percent of employees work very long hours, defined as working 50 hours or more per week. The OECD average is 13 percent, according to the latest OECD wellbeing data. 

The number of registered women wage-earners in Turkey fell by 40,000 in December 2016 compared to the same month of 2015, according to a new report prepared and released by the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV). 

TEPAV's latest workforce report stated that the fall in women employees amounted to a 1 percent drop year-on-year in the same period. 

On the occasion of European Equal Pay Day 2015, the European Commission draws attention to the gender pay gap, and its underlying causes.

The gender pay gap reflects ongoing discrimination and inequalities in the labour market which, in practice, mainly affect women. Its causes are complex and interrelated.