The pay gap between working men and women might be shrinking but employers are being warned they have to work harder to close it completely.
Full-time working women are taking home an average wage of $1433.60 a week, while men's pay packets contain $1678.40, figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show.
The $244.80 difference in their pay packets puts the gender pay gap at 14.6 per cent, down from 15.3 per cent a year ago.
Workplace Gender Equality Agency director Libby Lyons welcomes the fall but is warning employers not to become complacent because there is still plenty more to do to close the gap.
"This improvement in the gender pay gap proves that actions speak louder than words," she said.
"If every employer in Australia did a pay audit, analysed the results and then took action, we would eventually consign the national gender pay gap to the annals of history."
Full-time average weekly earnings for women rose 3.3 per cent in the year to May, the ABS figures released on Thursday showed.
For men the rise was a more subdued 2.3 per cent.
Some companies have been working to close the pay gap in the past year.
Energy giant AGL in March set aside $1.2 million to give hundreds of its women workers a pay rise to bring their wages into line with their male counterparts.
Australia Post, which is one of the nation's biggest employers with more than 32,700 staff, also closed its gender pay gap last October.
Chief executive Christine Holgate said more companies needed to commit not only to ensuring equal pay but also to getting more women into management positions and supporting male and female staff when they started families.
"Having equal pay is better for the economy because it encourages more women to be at work, and having more women at work creates more economic contributions," she told AAP.
Ms Holgate said companies that provided opportunities for women to enter middle and senior management ranks were giving them more economic independence, particularly if they helped support staff with young children to make it easier for female workers to return to work.
"If we want true equality, it is that," she said.
"It's not just a man and a woman doing the same job and getting the same pay."
Federal Labor deputy leader Tanya Plibersek earlier this year pledged to take "measurable action" to achieve equal pay for equal work if her party won the next federal election.
