[HN Gopher] California passes law requiring companies to post sa...
___________________________________________________________________
California passes law requiring companies to post salary ranges on
job listings
Author : jd_illa
Score : 98 points
Date : 2022-09-02 20:08 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| crftr wrote:
| For anyone who wants to read the bill, it's SB-1162.
|
| https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
| splonk wrote:
| I took a look to see if there were any requirements for the
| range of the pay scale to be posted, and it looks like this is
| all that's said:
|
| > "Pay scale" means the salary or hourly wage range that the
| employer reasonably expects to pay for the position.
|
| Also, apparently you can already ask for the pay scale, but
| this law would require it to be on any job posting.
|
| > Existing law requires an employer, upon reasonable request,
| to provide the pay scale for a position to an applicant
| applying for employment.
|
| And you would be able to get the pay range for your current
| job.
|
| > This bill would also require an employer, upon request, to
| provide to an employee the pay scale for the position in which
| the employee is currently employed.
| PenguinCoder wrote:
| > this law would require it to be on any job posting.
|
| And companies will still avoid listing a salary, and just say
| 'Not accepting applicants in Colorado or California' as they
| do now[1] to get around the Colorado law.
|
| 1. https://www.coloradoexcluded.com/
| showerst wrote:
| Until we hit a critical mass of states with this
| legislation.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Call your representative if you live in a state that
| hasn't passed such legislation yet.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Maybe. California seems like a bit of a big state to
| exclude candidates from. Although, I guess for remote work,
| it might be preferable to get people from low CoL states
| anyway.
| sammaher1 wrote:
| The business impact for any decently sized company of denying
| California + Colorado applicants will be much higher than
| denying just Colorado applicants.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Not mentioned somehow was that Washington state also passed a pay
| range on job listings law and it goes into effect Jan 1, 2023.
| xenago wrote:
| > California joins Colorado, New York City, and Washington
| state in adopting the job-posting tactic. Only Colorado's law
| is currently in effect
|
| From the article...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I thought I did ctrl F for Washington. Guess I was mistaken.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I'm curious. We hear a lot about gender pay gaps, but I suspect
| that H1B pay gaps may be more extreme.
|
| Will this expose that, or do you think that companies will find a
| way around that?
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| How would this expose that?
|
| Regardless, I think the biggest benefit to companies hiring
| H1Bs is the leverage of the employee's citizenship status.
| zhengyi13 wrote:
| I'm not confident it would, but just spitballing here, if
| Company X consistently posts a bunch of below-market
| salaries, and then/also hires an awful lot of H1B folk for
| the same positions, you could probably do an analysis a la
| opensecrets that could show a trend.
|
| I expect this would depend on H1B visa counts at least be
| public information. I'm not sure that's the case, and I'm not
| sure if it should be.
| bennysomething wrote:
| To (probabl mis) quote the Economist magazine, when adjusted
| for other variables the gender pay gap disappears.
| nulbyte wrote:
| What are those other variables? They could point to other
| problems. For example, if adjusting for experience eliminates
| the gap, wages might be driven down for a group of folks due
| to a lack of opportunities to gain that experience.
| skwirl wrote:
| I thought companies already had to make H1B salaries public --
| you can see them at https://h1bdata.info/.
| conanbatt wrote:
| Immigration policy is national, so states can't do much about
| policy that affects us immigrants.
|
| H1B income is capped by the inability to have secondary income
| sources and the inability for spouses to work.
| citilife wrote:
| > I'm curious. We hear a lot about gender pay gaps, but I
| suspect that H1B pay gaps may be more extreme.
|
| How much is a visa worth to you? A lot, so yes they'll pay
| people less; that's the way it works.
| xenago wrote:
| Seems like a really obvious move. Don't waste time, don't bait-
| and-switch.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Companies will still try and bait and switch.
|
| Post huge ranges and tell very qualified people that they only
| qualify for the low end, for instance.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| And many qualified applicants will simply ignore postings
| entirely with wide bands where the low end would be a pay cut
| for them.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Assuming other employers are not posting more helpful pay
| range information. If you are trying to attract very
| qualified candidates but also signaling that you want to pay
| bottom dollar, that might not work so well for any market
| where very qualified labor supply is tight.
| bennysomething wrote:
| I'm not sure I agree with this type of legislation. Most of us
| have experienced that developer value add varies hugely. I think
| what bothers me most is that it seems to be a push for pay
| banding. We re individuals, I'd prefer to neogitate on my own
| terms.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| How does it impede a labor seller's ability to negotiate?
| CydeWeys wrote:
| It will help me greatly when job hunting as I will be able to
| immediately filter out the 90+% of jobs which would be a pay
| downgrade for me.
|
| These laws don't outlaw negotiation. Not sure what you're
| talking about there.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| If someone is really good but it would take more money than
| is advertised to tempt them into the new role, what happens?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I would guess not systemically doing it is covered under it
| not being a "reasonable" expectation. If you are, over the
| course of time, paying 70% of the candidates you hire more
| than your stated top range, that might be a problem.
|
| All the way at the bottom of:
|
| https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xht
| m...
|
| >(1) "Pay scale" means the salary or hourly wage range that
| the employer reasonably expects to pay for the position.
| dang wrote:
| This title is a bit misleading because it isn't law yet. From the
| article:
|
| _The bill will head to Governor Gavin Newsom, who has until
| Sept. 30 to sign or veto. He hasn't yet expressed a position and
| didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. If he signs
| it, [etc.]_
| supernova87a wrote:
| Is it required that the actual job pay adhere to the salary range
| posted, and no different? How about if companies pay more than
| the range quoted, so that they simply post low salaries and
| negotiate up? If it's not required, then how is it an improvement
| on the situation that everyone is still basically negotiating
| what he/she can justify?
|
| Also, what does it do about the situation when a job's
| compensation is largely not salary but stock?
| pseudalopex wrote:
| The Labor Commissioner must investigate complaints and may
| order fines. Companies can give more information if they want.
| yed wrote:
| No, but if you low ball the numbers you put in the job ad then
| the people you actually want for the job won't apply.
| joshstrange wrote:
| Any bets on how many states pass legislation like this before
| companies stop with the "except CO, CA, ...." (and the other
| states that have passed it)?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| With CA (and WA) passing it, I predict it will stop in 3, ...
| 2, ...
| [deleted]
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| https://archive.ph/Tap0a
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > (3) Within each job category, for each combination of race,
| ethnicity, and sex, the median and mean hourly rate.
|
| If we want to resolve pay disparities we also need to stop
| pretending that Salary means 40 hours and instead require
| accurate hours worked reporting regardless of "exempt" salary or
| not.
|
| Why? Because hours worked is not equal across the variables
| teeray wrote:
| How does the law prevent the obvious loophole of listing the
| salary range as $1-$1bn for all positions? What are the
| permissible error bars?
| googlryas wrote:
| Because it doesn't allow it, there needs to be a reasonable
| belief by the employer that the job posting may be paid within
| that range. If a complaint goes in front of a judge, they would
| probably find that $1bn/yr is not a reasonable payment for a
| job.
|
| See the proposed amendments to 432.3 (m) (1).
| ctf1er wrote:
| If they post $1 or whatever small/min wage, I think we can now
| at least assume they intend to pay the lowest stated or
| allowed.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| As a practical matter, most of us would immediately ignore
| these joke postings. Hell, most job sites do (or would) allow
| filtering by compensation, which would hide these entirely.
| E.g. if you know you need to make $500k minimum, then a job
| that could "pay" $1 is gonna be right out.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That is not a loophole. It still solves the problem of
| information not being transmitted quickly enough through the
| marketplace about which jobs/types of labor have too much
| supply or insufficient demand if the bottom of the pay range is
| too low.
|
| Easily searchable and sortable price transparency will help
| allocate labor resources in a more timely manner.
| nickff wrote:
| You're not describing problems that the laws were intended to
| solve, at least from public statements. I'm also unsure as to
| whether the issues you describe are more than 'nuisance'
| problems, in that they don't cause long-term instability or
| inequity.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Price transparency underpins proper allocation of resources
| in an economy. This is from microeconomics 101. It would be
| greatly beneficial in the long term for a society to
| allocate resources (including labor) to where it is needed.
| gwright wrote:
| Don't disagree, but the challenge in this area is that no
| two people are alike and so the market price for
| developer-a is not the same as the market price for
| developer-b. Related, it depends on what job you are
| applying for as the same person applying for two
| different jobs isn't going to automatically end up with
| the same compensation.
|
| I'm not saying that some transparency wouldn't help, just
| that market pricing for labor doesn't work the same way
| it does for a commodity.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Sure, and for those positions the market will decide that
| a wider pay range for job listings is justified. That is
| the purpose of not forcing a certain pay range.
|
| Personally, I do not see a reason to legislate a specific
| bottom or top range. Let the pay range be $min wage to
| $1B. Eventually, employers who try to do that will be
| forced to change by lack of quality workers applying to
| them.
| mlyle wrote:
| > Sure, and for those positions the market will decide
| that a wider pay range for job listings is justified.
|
| Agreed. (and/or we end up with finer graduated positions
| with similar pay bands).
|
| > Personally, I do not see a reason to legislate a
| specific bottom or top range. Let the pay range be $min
| wage to $1B.
|
| If you don't require any good faith description of the
| pay bands, the law is useless. You can post accurate,
| narrow pay bands now if you want. Or you can post none.
| Workers have been letting companies get away with posting
| none.
|
| $min wage to $1B is functionally equivalent to none.
| majormajor wrote:
| That would still be a massive improvement over the status quo -
| it becomes immediately apparent what companies are more likely
| to be playing games.
| endisneigh wrote:
| It's a start but it's not enough. They should post the inter-
| quartile range, median and median, but obviously that becomes
| cluttered.
|
| Take Netflix for example who famously only had a single "Software
| Engineer" role regardless of skill level.
|
| You'd see something like $75K-$1M which is not super helpful.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It is very helpful because any half competent software engineer
| will know to stay away from Netflix, because demand for
| competent software engineers means they can filter out pay
| ranges that will waste their time.
|
| For others, they will know that the bottom of the pay range for
| software engineers is $75k so if they want to earn that much,
| they should acquire those skills.
| triceratops wrote:
| Netflix's stated policy is to be the top payer for every
| role. Pay is the only reason to _not_ stay away from Netflix.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Sure, so if that is true, you will see employers listing
| jobs for $200k to $500k, and Netflix listing jobs for $250k
| to $600k.
|
| This price transparency law will give applicants the
| ability to see if Netflix is bluffing when they say they
| offer top pay, without having to waste time actually
| applying.
| endisneigh wrote:
| That's not what it means because Netflix also pays a lot on
| the high end. There's no way to map your particular skills to
| the range without first getting an offer if the range is
| large.
|
| For those who aspire to the low end that's fine but there's
| still no guarantee you'd get an offer.
|
| Though I support this move whole heartedly it still doesn't
| change the fact that you have to interview and get an offer
| to know the particulars.
|
| The impossible ideal would be a company preemptively giving
| you an offer _before_ interviewing given predetermined
| interview performance. That way you can only interview at
| places that will pay you want, guaranteed. This is basically
| the same as applying to places with a very tight range.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| And that is the applicant's choice if they want to spend
| their time on finding that out.
|
| Otherwise they can apply with Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft,
| and Facebook who might be hiring within a narrower, but
| higher pay band.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > And that is the applicant's choice if they want to
| spend their time on finding that out.
|
| So... what's the point of the law? Isn't this already the
| case?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| No, because employers have an upper hand and more
| information (in most scenarios of buying and selling
| labor).
|
| The benefit of the law would be to give all market
| participants access to more information, but it is also
| important not to unnecessarily restrict any of the market
| participants.
|
| It will be obvious that if a labor buyer is putting out
| $min wage to $1B pay ranges, that they should be ignored
| and/or they will get the worst applicants. For a labor
| seller, they will know to avoid labor buyers that cannot
| provide a decent bottom pay for their job listing.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| They don't have more information. They don't know:
|
| - what the prospective employee is currently paid - what
| the prospective employee would move job for - how serious
| the alternatives the prospective employee mentions are
|
| Those three are the things the prospective employee
| knows, that the prospective employer is trying to guess.
| This new law erodes (and will likely eradicate) the first
| one, as it's basically a statewide public salary banding
| system.
|
| Also, this probably isn't all just "labor" jobs. I think
| it's all jobs.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| An employer usually has more information about market
| prices than an employee because the employer is simply
| hiring or at least interviewing more often. Plus they
| might have access to things like
| https://theworknumber.com/ which can show them accurate
| pricing nationwide and per applicant (although this CA
| law would outlaw that).
|
| It should never be relevant to an employer what a
| candidate is currently being paid.
|
| >Also, this probably isn't all just "labor" jobs. I think
| it's all jobs.
|
| I do not understand this. All jobs involve a worker
| selling labor to someone else.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > It should never be relevant to an employer what a
| candidate is currently being paid.
|
| Of course it's relevant - it helps them understand what
| can tempt an employee away from their current job. That's
| why it's worth hiding it. This law stops it being hidden.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > It should never be relevant to an employer what a
| candidate is currently being paid
|
| Well they aren't going to come and work for you unless
| you pay them more than what they're currently being paid
| (unless they're moving for something like life reasons)
| so I don't think there is any more relevant number than
| that.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > It will be obvious that if a labor buyer is putting out
| $min wage to $1B pay ranges, that they should be ignored
| and/or they will get the worst applicants.
|
| Wait this doesn't make sense.
|
| If you think that employers would get better applicants
| if they put more accurate ranges... then they'd be
| putting accurate ranges right now, as nothing's stopping
| them.
|
| Why does the government need to step if it's it's
| obviously such a good deal for the employers right now?
|
| And why would I ignore a company with a wide range? I
| don't care if the range is wide, as long as I get the
| upper end of it.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Why does the government need to step if it's it's
| obviously such a good deal for the employers right now?
|
| Because employers have had disproportionate power over
| labor for a very long time. Might not be so much for
| engineers/doctors/lawyers/etc, but 80%+ of people are
| walking into a negotiation in a weaker spot with less
| info than the employer.
|
| That is why in the past couple years, we are finally
| seeing signs outside Taco Bell and signs on bus driving
| advertising pay rates. Until now, they have enjoyed a
| better negotiating position than the employees.
|
| > And why would I ignore a company with a wide range? I
| don't care if the range is wide, as long as I get the
| upper end of it.
|
| Because if I am capable of getting the upper end, and
| another employer is offering the upper end, but with a
| higher lower end also, I am not going to waste my time
| risking getting a lower offer. Applying to a job and
| interviewing have costs.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Sorry I'm still confused.
|
| You think it's an advantage to companies to post more
| accurate pay bands - right? You said "It will be obvious
| that if a labor buyer is putting out $min wage to $1B pay
| ranges, that they should be ignored and/or they will get
| the worst applicants."
|
| But they can post narrow bands _right now_ if they want
| to - they don 't need to wait for the law to tell them do
| it.
|
| If it's an advantage to them, then why aren't they doing
| it anyway?
|
| I would guess that the answer is it's not an advantage,
| because most of the time their pay is bad, and telling
| people up front does not help them. I've seen this with
| companies like ThoughtBot and GitLab that make a big deal
| out of pay transparency... problem is they're being
| transparent about how bad their pay is.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > If it's an advantage to them, then why aren't they
| doing it anyway?
|
| Because it does not sufficiently offset the advantage
| they get from withholding pay information from labor
| sellers.
|
| As soon as it does help employers more than it hurts
| them, they do advertise pay. Now that labor supply has
| shifted so drastically that restaurants and retailers
| have to close early, those places are advertising pay.
|
| The purpose of the legislation is not to help employers,
| it is to help employees, who are at a disadvantage due to
| lack of information among other things.
|
| > I've seen this with companies like ThoughtBot and
| GitLab that make a big deal out of pay transparency...
| problem is they're being transparent about how bad their
| pay is.
|
| Their pay is bad to you. Maybe it is acceptable to
| someone else. Maybe someone is earning $20 as a bus
| driver and wants to switch jobs. Maybe they would be
| willing to work for ThoughtBot and Gitlab's wages and
| work to become qualified.
|
| Or maybe their pay is objectively too low and they will
| eventually go out of business. Either way, price
| transparency always leads to better resource allocation
| and better functioning marketplaces. Letting either
| buyers or sellers have long term disproportionate
| advantages is not in society's best interest.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| Interestingly enough, many salaries are public, specifically H1B
| salaries:
|
| https://h1bdata.info/
|
| Many Washington state employees salary info is public, including
| full name:
|
| https://fiscal.wa.gov/DVK12Salaries.aspx
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| The lie here is that many companies have as much as 75% of
| compensation in non-salary items (like equity, bonus).
|
| So folks who do not know any better could still work for 1/4
| the market rate.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The people who will benefit most from these price
| transparency laws will be at the low end of the pay scale,
| like fast food workers and drivers and retail and hotel
| employees.
|
| They may not address price transparency for people who
| receive equity compensation, but it is still a great start to
| help those at the bottom.
| conanbatt wrote:
| I disagree - in economic terms the information asymmetry is
| hardest where there is less competition. You have companies
| paying 100k and 600k for same-roles in the industry.
|
| But alas making it mandatory is not the way to go.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Why not?
| conanbatt wrote:
| Most good ideas don't require guns to enforce them.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| > Most good ideas don't require guns to enforce them.
|
| This implies some do. So it didn't answer the question.
| feet wrote:
| Hard disagree. Environmental and consumer protection
| regulations are highly important and would not be
| followed because they cut into profit.
| eddiezane wrote:
| Colorado resident here. Maybe companies will start to take this
| seriously now that more states are passing similar laws. My go to
| response to recruiter spam for the past 1.5 years has been "Do
| you have Colorado Equal Pay for Equal Work Act compliant job
| listings" to which they usually don't reply. The majority of "US
| Remote" posts I see don't include this information but the ones
| that do are interesting data points.
| ec109685 wrote:
| There are companies that refuse to hire from Colorado because
| of that. Hopefully if California passes this law, that
| exception will drop.
| Whatarethese wrote:
| I cant think of a bigger red flag than that.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| What happens if they really want someone but to get them to move
| it would require breaching the maximum advertised?
| mlyle wrote:
| Roughly:
|
| You have to post the pay scale for the position. So, if current
| employees in that role make $100,000 to $120,000, and you
| expect to hire whomever responds at ~$116,000, you would post
| $100k-120k.
|
| Later, if you hire someone for $125k, the pay scale now
| includes $125k. You must provide this info to current employees
| on request, and would have to include it in subsequent
| listings.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I imagine it will be simpler to just higher a $10k/yr cheaper
| alternative than do this all the time, even if that
| alternative ends up being half as good as the more expensive
| alternative.
|
| I can't imagine all the interpersonal issues caused by this
| being requested after every hire!
| scrose wrote:
| The ranges aren't a legal min/max. Just a reasonable range.
| egberts1 wrote:
| Kentucky, Wisconsin, Nevada and Vermont all achieved better
| gender-pay equality than California, Colorado, and New York
| without the need to enforce private sector from revealing the
| salary offer.
|
| Is this the more depriving by state governments of the common
| workers' privacy through needless encroaching laws?
|
| Who gains by this loss of privacy?
| joshstrange wrote:
| > Meanwhile West Virginia, Michigan, Colorado, and Utah all
| achieved gender-pay equality as well as privacy without any pay
| transparency.
|
| Proof?
|
| > Makes me wonder why California and New York are exposing the
| privacy part for through their state victims' paychecks?
|
| What on earth are you talking about? How does posting a salary
| range "expose the privacy" of people? Also this isn't just
| about pay equity, it's about knowing what you are applying for
| before going through the process.
| yardie wrote:
| Are you looking at the chart correctly? Those states have the
| widest pay gaps with Utah ranked the highest.
| gwright wrote:
| That chart is useless. It apparently only corrects for hours
| worked. What about years in the workforce, year in the job,
| occupational mix, job level?
| threatofrain wrote:
| Isn't California following Colorado's lead?
|
| > Meanwhile West Virginia, Michigan, Colorado, and Utah all
| achieved gender-pay equality as well as privacy without any pay
| transparency.
|
| Also, how do you know that gender-pay equality has been
| achieved?
| the_jeremy wrote:
| I can't tell what you're arguing. No one is saying that any of
| those states have "achieved gender-pay equality". And CA isn't
| requiring your pay to be public knowledge, just salary ranges
| on job listings.
| zeruch wrote:
| "can't tell what you're arguing." I can; it's essentially a
| passive-aggressive conniption about an issue that doesn't
| exist that he has constructed to suit a political narrative
| glued permanently in his head about states that have in all
| likelihood, policies he views as not Randian/Trumpian enough.
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