Women earn six percent less than men in the NL

With additional reporting by Zack

The wage gap between men and women is on the decline again this year, according to the Monsterboard Wage Index. While the average gross hourly wage of women remain unchanged at 13.86 euros, the average earned by men fell from 15.19 to 14.72, a drop of three percent. 

Though on the surface, women earn within a euro per hour of men, they still actually take in a gross salary nearly six percent lower. That is an improvement from the previous wage gap of less than 8.8 percent, according to the index, and a huge boost from the 2010 gender wage gap of 20.5 percent, according to the OECD.

"It is a positive sign that wage gap is becoming smaller," said Gian Zandona, managing director of Monsterboard,nl. "The gap is still present in part due to the fact that many women still take a career break or work part-time," Women are also less confident about their income and move faster on the job market, according to Zandona.

The gap is the highest among management workers. The largest gender gap is between managers in IT and financial sectors, where male managers earn nearly 20 percent more than women. The manager pay gap is the smallest in logistics, where the gender pay difference is around ten percent.

There is still a large gender wage gap in the financial and legal sectors. In the financial sector, the gas increased from 8.4 to 13.9 percent, and in the legal sector it grew from 8.3 to 11.3 percent.

This year, 54 percent of women were is search of a new job, according to the Wage Index. The figure is 47 percent for men.