Companies lower salaries in job postings as pay transparency laws take effect

3 years ago by return2ozma to c/workreform

Pay transparency laws have made more employers disclose salary ranges in job listings. Yet, a new report finds advertised wages aren’t growing as expected.
SpaceNoodle 303 points 3 years ago

The point wasn't to just raise salaries, but to curtail deceptive practices. I'd rather know they're lowballing me before starting the interview process.

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anarchrist 242 points 3 years ago

Alt headline: companies start posting more accurate salary descriptions after the government fucking made them.

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Zaktor 10 points 3 years ago

"Companies stop lying after government institutes consequences."

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snooggums 38 points 3 years ago

You know they are always low balling you though, right?

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SpaceNoodle 21 points 3 years ago

More than usual, obviously.

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ohlaph 2 points 3 years ago

Obviously, Nick Lachey.

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Taleya 187 points 3 years ago

Lol 'lower salaries' they were never legitimately offering those salaries you boot gobbling fool

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Bakkoda 15 points 3 years ago

Last place I interviewed, recruiter and I agreed with my qualifications etc I should ask for 90k. They hired someone for 67.5k with no qualifications. The person literally took a pay cut to take the job. I don't get it.

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winkerjadams 18 points 3 years ago

Sounds like they hired someone unqualified cause it cost them less and the person with no qualifications took it because so would you if that was your best option.

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gataloca 15 points 3 years ago

That's why they hate things like welfare or full employment. They need a desperate army of reserve labor to keep wages low.

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superduperenigma 4 points 3 years ago
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Moobythegoldensock 156 points 3 years ago

“While they were being very competitive externally, they were threatening internal equity and internal incentives,” Pollak said. “There needs to be some [salary] growth year after year to keep people around and to keep them engaged.”

Translation: “If we advertise at market rates, our employees might figure out they’re all being underpaid.”

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CileTheSane 17 points 3 years ago

These same companies: "Nobody wants to work."

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Crystal_Shards64 1 point 3 years ago

I'm currently being underpaid roughly 12 to 20k compared to my coworkers because my job title is slightly different. Yet I'm the one training all of them. I'm going to leave when I can but I've been stuck for a while. Might have to find a completely different job/career eventually.

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radiohead37 124 points 3 years ago

Salary range: $35k - $270k

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hightrix 111 points 3 years ago

Was looking at a job posting for a role in CA and the range was, I shit you not, 75k-395k.

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cm0002 36 points 3 years ago

I kinda want to give them the benefit of the doubt because that's just odd it seems as if someone just fat fingered the 3, because 75-95 makes a lot more sense

But then again corporate gonna corporate soooo

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hightrix 33 points 3 years ago

Unfortunately, this level of job regularly pays 200k plus or minus a bit. So I doubt it was a fat finger unless they meant 175-395.

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DoomBot5 14 points 3 years ago

Maybe they did fat finger it, but they didn't care because they weren't being paid enough?

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LordOfTheChia 6 points 3 years ago

I usually average out the two salaries and use that as their "intended" starting pay.

So (75 + 395)/2 = 235k a year avg starting salary for an average applicant.

The top end I consider the pay if the applicant meets all the requirements listed in the job ad.

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Deconceptualist 21 points 3 years ago

It's no accident. I was out of a job for half the year and saw this so many times. In states where the laws aren't specific enough, posting an absurd salary range is how companies comply with the letter but not the spirit of it.

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sxan 13 points 3 years ago

You've never shopped for housing in California, have you? $95k doesn't give you rent for a room in a quad.

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cm0002 4 points 3 years ago

Well I wasn't really saying it was a fair or decent wage lol just that it made more sense for the range to be a difference of 20k instead of 320k lmao

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SpaceNoodle 5 points 3 years ago

That's way too low for CA. But 395 is senior-staff-level.

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bouh 1 point 3 years ago

That's very fat fingers to type a 3 next to a - or a 9.

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qarbone 15 points 3 years ago

What that says to me is they are not looking to fill a specific position. They are collecting resumes for whatever internal backlog and, should they have a need, they'll fill any necessary positions at those salary brackets from their resume pile.

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scytale 22 points 3 years ago

Lmao I literally just got a linkedin email of a job posting in Netflix for a role similar to my current job. The salary range? 100k-700k.

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radiohead37 20 points 3 years ago

I thought I was already exaggerating a little with 35k to 270k. But now I feel it was realistic.

On a side note, please don’t even consider taking a job at Netflix. Everybody who works there is always under threat of losing their job. They constantly reevaluate employees and managers are forced to churn through people even when their team is working well. The culture is absolutely savage.

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SpaceNoodle 7 points 3 years ago

Their "flat" hierarchy also winds up pitting everyone against each other.

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punkwalrus 7 points 3 years ago

I'm not saying you're wrong, never worked there, but if you're not worried about job stability personally, it doesn't matter. Do your best, learn everything you can, take no criticism personally, get fired for bullshit reasons, and learn from the experience. Just use them. They don't care about you, you already know you could be fired, and ride the wave as far as it takes you. The lifestyle is not for everyone, but a lot of younger people know this these days. They see the companies like stepping stones. Any company probably won't last ten years, anyway. Loyalty is bullshit on either side.

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Redscare867 3 points 3 years ago

For a 700k salary I would 100% take the risk. Don’t change your lifestyle after you get the job and just pocket the extra cash. If you get fired having Netflix on your resume should allow you to find a new position fast enough to come out on top of the deal provided that you are able to make it a few months at Netflix.

If you are fortunate enough to have 3-6 months of expenses in an emergency fund then there is very little downside as long as you are able to maintain the correct headspace.

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Osa-Eris-Xero512 22 points 3 years ago

Sounds like software engineering

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ohlaph 3 points 3 years ago

Exactly. Literally saw that yesterday.

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orcrist 83 points 3 years ago
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unfreeradical 55 points 3 years ago

I guess lying to employees about the law is just what families do.

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1847953620 49 points 3 years ago

we're like a family. The kind of family you move away from forever and drink to forget for the rest of your life.

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unfreeradical 10 points 3 years ago

What matters most is understanding, even if we have our own doubts about the methods, that everything corporations do is done out of love.

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Evotech 46 points 3 years ago

Taboo and illegal are not the same though

It's definitely been taboo within us companies

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snausagesinablanket 12 points 3 years ago

Talking about salaries was never taboo

The employee handbook of Cobleskill Regional Hospital in Upstate NY in 2000 put talking about your pay with another employee as a fireable offense.

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orcrist 2 points 3 years ago
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Semi-Hemi-Demigod 35 points 3 years ago

The real number I'd like to know is how much value my labor is actually producing versus what they pay me.

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paraphrand 18 points 3 years ago

That would be some fun transparency. You could compare ratios and that ratio would be a number people talk about.

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nandeEbisu 13 points 3 years ago

That's pretty difficult for a lot of jobs. For someone in sales, easy, you can look at the value of the contracts they bring in. For someone who works in facilities maintenance or tech support? Good luck figuring that out.

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Skates 8 points 3 years ago
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Amoeba_of_death 1 point 3 years ago

I work in professional services, and this is so true. I feel like every new client I onboard and start implementing has promises in their contract we can't fulfill due to product limitations. Oh, it's supposed to do X out of the box? Nope, maybe we can customize it, but that's a weird niche requirement that's going to take a lot of discovery and architecting.

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uriel238 3 points 3 years ago

Businessmen, they drink my wine
Plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line
Know what any of it is worth

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joshthewaster 0 points 3 years ago

Profit/number of employees...

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nandeEbisu 4 points 3 years ago

The issue there is not everyone is equally productive. In the most direct example someone who is more experienced with a piece of equipment or technology will often be more productive with it than someone who isn't. That's ignoring that different people have different competencies. If you ask me to design costumes for a TV show, I would fail miserably. If you asked a fashion designer to do my job without any training, they would likewise not be very successful at it.

There are plenty of ills that come along with capitalism, but I do think some amount of incentive will promote productivity. I don't think that people are lazy and won't do any work unless they are threatened with homelessness and starvation, but I do believe if an innovative strong performer in a role is not given recognition in a real tangible way, they will either leave to a place where they can get that recognition or just stop being as innovative and productive.

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unfreeradical -1 points 3 years ago

Productivity is a form of activity, not a quantity.

Systems of productivity that are organized by wage remuneration rely on processes of labor valorization, but no such process reflects any inherent or essential feature of the productive activities undertaken by any individual worker.

Production in enterprise is by social processes.

Processes of valorization have more cogency at the level of the entire enterprise, because products within the enterprise are created through the complex accumulation of many individual contributions, but are exchanged between easily separable entities, one enterprise with another, or an enterprise with a consumer, often through commodity markets.

Ultimately, there is no law of nature for resolving a distinctively quantified value of each worker's labor.

Similarly, there is no law of nature proscribing the same rate of remuneration to each worker per unit of time contributed to the social processes of labor. A social choice for such practices would be possible to implement.

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lemming741 9 points 3 years ago path: 0 4940840 4954829, hotness: undefined, score: 9, children: 0
r00ty 7 points 3 years ago

They do hold that data of course, where possible. I've heard it called personal P&L.

But tbh I reckon it would only be a new source of depression to know. :p

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unfreeradical 2 points 3 years ago

The full value of labor can be considered meaningfully only at the level of the whole enterprise.

You and your coworkers collectively contribute labor worth the value of the products you create collectively, minus the costs of inputs and operation.

How such value is distributed within the enterprise is simply a choice by those who control the enterprise. No objective solution is available. Owners pay each worker the minimum possible for the labor to be provided, which under current systems is different for each kind of labor, due to labor commodification over markets represented by the law of supply and demand,.

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Colorcodedresistor 0 points 3 years ago
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unfreeradical 1 point 3 years ago

I am not understanding the relevance or meaning of your objection in context, but if you are seeking to protect the interests of insurance companies, then perhaps you should not be participating in a space created for advancing the interests of workers.

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Colorcodedresistor 0 points 3 years ago
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shalafi -12 points 3 years ago

That's actually rather easy if you work for a publicly traded corp, at least to ballpark it.

Company profits / total workers. (<-this seems facile, what am I missing?)

OTOH, beware comparisons of pay scales.

"CEOs make too much!"

Do the math. CEO pay is typically 1/100th of a penny earned, sometimes 1/1000th, not a drop in the bucket. Don't matter. When I was a kid, sports star pay was the thing to rage about. LOL, haven't seen a single lemming comment about that. Whatever.

"I don't make enough!"

And that's very likely true, but you cost far more than you think. Good rule of thumb? Double your pay, that's what you actually cost. You make $15/hr.? Company probably pays $30, or a bit more. Company has to pay worker's comp insurance, taxes, benefits, unemployment insurance, payroll processing fees, all that and more.

SOURCE: Worked IT for a payroll company, got the inside scoop.

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AtariDump 11 points 3 years ago

but you cost far more than you think.

When companies pay peanuts compared to the C-Suite AND post record profits each year, I think the company could give me more than a 3% raise.

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Zoboomafoo -5 points 3 years ago

It's impressive how deftly you avoid the comment to spout your own opinion

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AtariDump 1 point 3 years ago
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shalafi -5 points 3 years ago

Well, that goes without saying. I was commenting on the idea of "fair market value".

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AtariDump 1 point 3 years ago

The downvotes say otherwise.

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uriel238 9 points 3 years ago

If you have to underpay your workers to make enough profit, then your business model sucks, and your company should fail.

Economics 1B

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Paddzr 26 points 3 years ago

Expected based on what? We're recruiting, we had to increase the advertised salary twice. This is public, everyone at the company notices these increases. If they don't come across to the existing people? It will be a riot and mass exodus. Something the company cannot afford to do. Replacing People costs an absolute fortune in time and money.

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morgan_423 39 points 3 years ago

Replacing People costs an absolute fortune in time and money.

Something that corporate America seems to not care about for some reason these days.

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gimlithepirate 24 points 3 years ago

Corporate America is operating on the Car Dealership model: there are enough rubes to fleece it’s not worth the effort to get quality customers/employees.

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Moobythegoldensock 12 points 3 years ago

If they don’t come across to the existing people? It will be a riot and a mass exodus.

No shit. Maybe you should pay your staff market wages?

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shalafi -9 points 3 years ago

Companies are paying "market wages". So what's your complaint and/or solution?

LOL, every shit job I ever had, "We're proud to pay the going rate for this work!"

Good jobs I've had, and have now? Yeah, no bullshit talk like that.

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Moobythegoldensock 4 points 3 years ago

If you’re listing a job and no one’s applying at the price point, you’re advertising below market wages. If you’re paying your senior employees less than your new hires, you’re paying them below market wages. What a company wants to pay is not market wages: the laws of supply and demand dictate what market wages are. The wage that will interest new qualified workers and the wage that will retain experienced workers are the wages that the market are actually dictating.

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gataloca 0 points 3 years ago

Nationalize your enterprise? Or better yet, convert it to a cooperative and give the profits directly to the employees?

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spittingimage 7 points 3 years ago

This is public, everyone at the company notices these increases. If they don’t come across to the existing people? It will be a riot and mass exodus.

That's a feature, not a bug.

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uriel238 3 points 3 years ago

Considering how easily people are dismissed for failing to blow the management, I call shenanigans.

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paraphrand 1 point 3 years ago
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surewhynotlem 19 points 3 years ago

This was never about raising salaries.

Now that the data is public, the companies can implicitly collude to keep them low. No one will offer more than any other, which will drive them down.

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Maggoty 38 points 3 years ago

They were already colluding. At least now workers can see it and form unions to fight back.

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davemate 16 points 3 years ago

Except if one chooses not to play ball and pay a little more, it can have the best of the pool. So others compete, I think that's how this is supposed to work

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knotthatone 7 points 3 years ago

They share it amongst themselves via third party consulting firms already. This just gives the public visibility.

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shalafi 2 points 3 years ago

We just gave "big data" more "big data". They surely won't use it against us!

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uriel238 1 point 3 years ago

then no one will work if they can choose to not.

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derf82 13 points 3 years ago

That’s exactly what I would expect. The goal was largely to end the bait and switch.

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workreform
workreform

@lemmy.world

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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.

Our Philosophies:

  • All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
  • Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
  • Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
  • We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.

Our Goals

  • Higher wages for underpaid workers.
  • Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
  • Better and fewer working hours.
  • Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
  • Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.

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