(Bloomberg) -- For workers seeking a pay rise, where they are employed may matter as much as how good they are at their job.

According to OECD research, around one third of wage inequality is due to gaps in policies between employers rather than differing skills. In the countries covered in the organization’s report, high-wage companies pay about twice as much as their low-wage peers for comparable workers.

“Firms have considerable power to set wages independently from their competitors,” the report said. “Wages are not exclusively determined by skills -- the firm where people work matters.”

The force for wage inequality may be exacerbated by the Covid pandemic as gaps between businesses broaden with a growing digital divide and “winner-takes-all” dynamics, the OECD said. The trend is also contributing to gender-pay gaps due to higher employment shares of women in low-wage firms, it said.

“Action is needed now to avoid the risk of a two-speed economy, in which activity and employment are highly concentrated, and high-productivity firms and their workers increasingly pull away from the rest,” the OECD said.

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