Last December, Yun Yathi Naing began looking for a job after graduating from Baruch College in New York City. That was a month after the city passed a law requiring employers with four or more employees to include a salary range in all new job advertisements.
“All my friends were talking about it,” Naing said. “Coming out of college and into the workforce really made a big difference. We had no idea what these entry-level jobs would pay.”
Thanks to new disclosure requirements, Naing, who was interested in a career in finance, was able to filter out jobs below her desired minimum salary of $50,000. She tracked her job listings in her Excel spreadsheet, went through a flurry of interviews and offers, and was told that her starting salary was between her $54,000 and her $79,000 financial I accepted a service job.
Her new employer’s offer was $60,000 and she negotiated a modest increase. She graduated in early June and just started working.
Young people like Naing start job hunting with a clear picture of what they can expect to earn as a result of a spate of new laws requiring employers to list salary ranges in job advertisements. people are increasing. The Pay Transparency Act has been enacted. California, State of Washington, Colorado and some cities, including New York.Illinois passed it The Wage Transparency Act will go into effect in May.
More than a quarter of the U.S. workforce is now covered by the Pay Transparency Act, according to estimate By the National Center for Women’s Law. Norms are changing across the country. On her job search site Indeed, about 45 percent of all job ads in the U.S. now have a salary range disclosure, up from less than 20 percent before the pandemic.
Legislators often introduce pay transparency laws to reduce gender and racial pay gaps. Full-time women in the United States earn about 84 percent the same as men. according to Black, Hispanic, and Native American workers earn 73-77 cents for every dollar white workers make. Requiring employers to list salary ranges can help make your job search easier.
“They can have peace of mind that what they are getting is fair and feel more confident about their choices,” said Ellen Stein, director of Baruch’s Star Career Development Center. said Mr.
reveal the pay gap
For some workers, disclosure laws have exposed wage disparities at work. Her 25-year-old poet and UX writer Kimberly Nguyen, who writes consumer texts for digital products, found her job listings while scrolling through her LinkedIn in March. I was. She was recently hired by consulting firm Foton to work as a Citigroup contractor on a team that included full-time employees and other contractors.
During the interview process, Nguyen said that working as a contractor first was the only way to secure a full-time job at Citi, and that the company’s goal was to eventually hire all contractors as full-time employees. He said he was told that Through a process called conversion. She was told she was eligible for conversion after 6 months of contract work.
When a job listing for a UX copywriting position at Citi popped up on her LinkedIn feed, Nguyen thought it might be a permanent job opening for one of the contractors. The salary gap was wide, with her earning her $85,000 and the salary range listed in the job postings ranging from $117,200 for her to $175,800 for her.
“If there’s a difference between $10,000 and $15,000 in salary, you’re like, ‘Okay, that makes sense,'” Nguyen said. “Contracting agents need to get their cut. City is paying them to pay me. But the gap is too big.”
Nguyen posted about the situation on Twitter, saying, “My company just posted a job posting on LinkedIn for my current job (i.e. hiring another UX writer), but now So, thanks to the Pay Transparency Act, they were willing to pay this person $32,000 to $90,000 more than they’re currently paying me, so I applied.”
Later, she attended a meeting and asked her boss at City about the classified ad. Some other contractors on her team questioned management about the position and higher salaries than they were making. Frustrated at not getting a clear response from her, she added in her own Twitter thread:
This thread went viral and brought attention to the issue. But nothing had changed when we spoke in June. Nguyen was still working for Foton as a Citi contractor and had not received a raise. She had never heard of anyone on the contractor’s team being employed full-time at the bank, but some had been laid off. Three weeks ago, she checked the status of her job application at Citi. She was no longer considered for the role. She was looking for new opportunities.
“The purpose of the law is clearly to help people assert themselves,” Nguyen said. “But as a result, no one has to do anything.”
Neither Citi nor Photon responded to requests for comment.
Expanded salary range
In some cases, employers enforce specific salary practices by posting job advertisements with salary ranges that could apply to anyone in the company, from a new hire in a private room to an executive in a corner office. We may avoid disclosure. For example, at Netflix, current job postings in California show salaries for consumer products between $60,000 and $290,000, and salaries for senior recruiting and hiring managers between $195,000 and $510,000. dollar. Netflix did not respond to questions about how it determined that range.
“An entire enterprise is usually more useful than useless, but if it’s too large, there can be areas that aren’t very beneficial,” said Baruch’s Dr. Stein.
Naing, a recent graduate, estimated that a quarter of the job postings she found while searching in New York were too broad to be useful.
High-paying industries could spread the practice.recently research A survey by economists at Indeed Hiring Lab shows a widening range of published salaries for positions in pharmacy, medical informatics, scientific research and development, and other industries. Salary estimates for food preparation and childcare jobs are becoming more and more accurate.
“In general, the range seems to be widening for high-paying jobs that are more likely to work remotely, but it’s starting to get even narrower for low-paying jobs that are likely to be in-person. last year,” said Cory Stahle, author of the Hiring Lab report.
One possible explanation for this opposing trend is labor market heterogeneity. Hiring at many tech companies has slowed over the past year, but demand for childcare workers remains strong. A tight labor market could put pressure on employers to compete for workers, which could result in more accurate (and sometimes higher) wages in job listings. .
By contrast, in industries experiencing layoffs, employers may be able to attract qualified applicants without disclosing exact salaries.
Starle’s research also points to geographic trends in salary data. Of the 10 cities with the most significant coverage increases, seven were in areas with new transparency laws.
Strengthening transparency measures
State and local governments have not said how they plan to crack down on employers who list too broad salary ranges or who avoid salary disclosures entirely. In Colorado, where transparency laws have been in place since 2021, a Department of Labor and Employment spokesperson said the state had issued 19 summonses for violating the law, most of which did not include fines, and 440. I have informed you above. Companies that may be out of compliance.
Most of these companies fixed the problem before the state launched a formal investigation. A spokesperson said Colorado has not issued a warning about the wide range of salaries and that the state is focusing more on voluntary compliance than fines.
A spokeswoman for the New York City Commission on Human Rights said the city had received more than 300 reports of violations of the law, but declined to answer questions about the content of the reports and whether fines or warning letters had been issued.
Companies may find it necessary to support transparency measures to attract job seekers.and investigation A December survey of more than 1,000 higher-education students and recent graduates by Adobe found that 85% were less likely to apply for a job if the company didn’t disclose a salary range in their job postings. I replied that it would.
Naing, who recently graduated, said he felt some companies offered high salary ranges “to be mean”, adding that he hoped that would be less common in the future. .
