New app developed to allow people to compare salaries
A new web application is about to be completed under the leadership of the office of the equality ombudsman that will allow all people in Estonia to compare their salaries with those of their professional counterparts free of charge, the raha.geenius.ee portal reports.
"The application can be used by all people in Estonia wishing to compare their salary with the average of the respective area, field of work, and gender," gender equality and equal treatment commissioner Liisa Pakosta told the portal.
The commissioner said she hopes the application will make the Estonian labor market more open and transparent and help women as those who have so far received a smaller salary throughout also for the same work to be more successful in negotiations.
However, the application does not only concern salaries, but will help make better informed decisions when collecting a pension. "For example, when one spends a long time at home with their child, the pension will be smaller. This will help women and policymakers understand the impact of decisions on future pensions," Pakosta said.
The application will be based on data from the national employment register. "As far as we known, these have not yet been made public to the user in this form, nor do we know about their previous use for research," Jaan Masso, senior research fellow in applied econometrics at the University of Tartu, told the portal.
The application will provide information on average salaries, but also by income brackets, so the plan is to show information regarding the entire salary distribution at least graphically.
The data will be displayed by job title and also by county so that the user can get an overview of what is happening in their area.
Masso said that when it comes to salary information, the level of detail largely depends on how many people work in the respective profession in the respective county.
For example, salary information in Tallinn and Tartu may be available in great detail by field of work, while the information may be slightly more general in Hiiumaa, because Hiiumaa may not have enough people working in many positions defined in greater detail for it to be possible to disclose salary information without violating confidentiality requirements.
--
Download the ERR News app for Android and iOS now and never miss an update!
Editor: Helen Wright
