The vast majority of the companies on LinkedIn's 25 Top Companies 2024 list which was released yesterday have Base Salary Gender Pay Gaps significantly outside of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency's recommended +/- 5 per cent range, including 9 of the top 10.

Seven of the top 25, including the top 3 companies have Base Salary Gender Pay Gaps that are worse than the national average of 14.5 per cent.

In fairness to LinkedIn, salaries do not factor into its consideration for this list. "Our methodology uses LinkedIn data to rank companies based on eight pillars that have been shown to lead to career progression: ability to advance; skills growth; company stability; external opportunity; company affinity; gender diversity; educational background and employee presence in the country”, a spokesperson told Mi3 Fast News.

And in its blog about the list, LinkedIn says, "This year's honourees are proving that investment in the employee experience is vital in today's employment landscape - whether it's launching upskilling initiatives to accelerate employees' artificial intelligence (AI) proficiency or offering flexible working arrangements. These are the companies leading the way not only in attracting workers, but retaining them in our ever-changing world of work."

Still, it's hard to ignore the preponderance of gender pay gap laggards in the top 25.

Commbank, which came first in the LinkedIn survey is the second worst performer among the Top 25 cohort on the WGEA's measure with a base salary gender pay gap of 29.8 per cent, far outside WGEA's recommendation. The worst performer, who placed 16th placed on LinkedIn's list was Resmed on 33.4 per cent.

The best performers on that measure, and the five who fell inside the WGEA's recommended gender equality range were Volvo at -2.8, Vestas (a renewable energy company) at -0.5, logistics outfit Team Global Express at 3.2, Google at 3.7 and Halliburton at 4.6. Four of the five can be characterised more as industrial businesses.

Banking, Finance, and Tech companies dominate the top 25 "Best Companies to Work." In addition to Commbank which was the best performer in the banking business on LinkedIn's scale, Australian Super was the top finance company, and Google was the top tech company.

- By Andrew Birmingham