Portugal is currently working on bringing the EU Pay Transparency Directive into national law. The European rules are aimed at giving workers more information about pay and helping to reduce salary discrimination between men and women doing the same work or work of equal value.

One of the changes has been widely understood to mean that candidates would see the salary or salary range directly in job adverts. However, the Portuguese Government's proposal does not go that far.

As reported by ECO, the draft proposal only states that candidates must be informed about the initial salary or salary range before signing an employment contract. This means companies would not necessarily have to disclose the salary in the job advert, or even before the interview.

This is slightly different from the wording of the EU directive. Under the European rules, candidates have the right to receive information about the initial salary or salary range early enough to allow for an informed and transparent negotiation. The directive says this information can be provided in the job advert, before the interview or in another way.

Another important change is that employers will no longer be able to ask candidates how much they earn or earned in their current or previous jobs. The Portuguese proposal is expected to introduce this rule in full.

Workers would also have greater access to information about salaries within their company. Under the proposal, employees would be able to request information about their own pay level as well as average pay levels, broken down by gender, for workers carrying out work of equal value. Employers would have two months to provide the requested information.

Companies with at least 50 employees would also have to make available the criteria they use to determine salaries, pay levels and salary progression. These criteria would have to be objective and the same for men and women.

Larger companies would face additional reporting requirements. According to ECO's analysis of the Government's proposal, companies with at least 250 employees would have to report their gender pay differences annually, while those with between 150 and 249 employees would report every three years. Companies with between 50 and 149 employees would also eventually be covered, with their first reporting deadline expected in 2031.

The proposal would also make clauses preventing workers from discussing or revealing their salaries invalid, giving employees greater freedom to talk about pay.

The new rules are not yet final. Portugal missed the 7 June deadline for transposing the European directive, and the Government's draft still has to go through the legislative process, including Parliament and the President of the Republic. This means some details could still change before the new rules become law.

For anyone looking for a new job, the changes should mean greater transparency around salaries. But under the Portuguese proposal as it currently stands, this does not necessarily mean seeing the salary written directly in every job advert.