Research: Financial Services Leads, Healthcare/Manufacturing Lag In Pay Equity Practices

New Research from Trusaic Reveals Industry Pay Equity Policies, Practices

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 18, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- New research from Trusaic reveals that financial services organizations are more advanced in their pay equity practices, in terms of the types of compensation they analyze, the methods they use, how often they conduct pay equity analysis and remediation, and their level of transparency. Conversely, the data suggests that healthcare and manufacturing organizations are more likely to lag in these areas. For those organizations that have operations in the European Union, the report also analyzes their readiness for mandated pay transparency and reporting criteria set to take effect in 2026.

The 2025 Pay Equity Policies and Practices Report is a joint project of pay equity software provider Trusaic and Empsight, a provider of specialized compensation data for Fortune 1000 and large multinational companies. Building on last year's results, the second annual study analyzed data from compensation professionals in 429 U.S. organizations, taking a deep dive into their pay equity practices. The study examined industries including healthcare, manufacturing, insurance, technology, retail, and financial services.

Key findings:

• Healthcare organizations were least likely to include total direct compensation (TDC) in their pay equity analysis. Only 9% of healthcare organizations analyze TDC, which includes base salary, short-term incentives (such as performance bonuses), and long-term incentives, such as stock-based rewards.  The insurance industry (20%) and manufacturing industry (23%) were next least likely. The financial services industry was most likely (45%) to include TDC as part of their analysis. Excluding these components can obscure actual pay disparities.
• Healthcare (47%) and retail/wholesale (48%) organizations report the lowest rates of conducting pay equity audits at least annually and are most likely to conduct these analyses ad hoc.
• Financial services (67%) and insurance (65%) report the highest level of annual analyses. Financial services organizations are also most likely (83%) to remedy pay gaps within a single year. Regular, annual pay equity assessments are key to promptly identifying and correcting pay inequities.
• By industry, only 6% of manufacturing organizations say they are fully transparent with their employees about compensation (where full transparency is defined as disclosing all salary ranges on internal and external sites or job postings). 35% of manufacturing organizations report no transparency at all.
• Healthcare (31%) and financial organizations (30%) report the highest levels of transparency in sharing all salary ranges on internal and external sites or job postings.
• Financial services organizations (52%) are most likely to use multiple regression to conduct pay equity analyses. This measure is used least often by retail (21%) and healthcare (22%). Healthcare organizations are most likely to rely on basic statistics (64%) to analyze pay and least likely (10%) to use software. Justifying pay gaps with objective criteria requires more than basic statistics and spreadsheets alone, and typically requires multiple regression analysis, which can account for numerous drivers of pay differences simultaneously.
• By industry, insurance organizations (85%) and financial services organizations (80%) say mitigating risk is the key driver behind their focus on pay equity. Retail/wholesale organizations value building trust through transparency (76%) as their main motivation.

"The findings suggest most organizations still have significant work to do to address pay equity more comprehensively and broadly," notes Robert Sheen, CEO of Trusaic. "While mitigating legal risk is the foremost driver of pay equity practices, organizations that advance pay equity and transparency are also more likely to attract and retain top talent."

About Trusaic:

Trusaic is the world's most trusted software for pay equity and EU Pay Transparency Directive compliance. Our AI-powered software solutions guide global enterprises toward precise, compliant pay decisions at scale to achieve pay equity for their global workforces. Our pay equity suite of products is augmented by Trusaic AI agents that simplify complex pay equity and transparency reporting tasks with precision. Organizations that partner with Trusaic turn every pay decision into progress. For more information about Trusaic, visit https://trusaic.com/

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SOURCE Trusaic