New York passed a law to improve pay transparency, which would shrink the gender pay gap. But a group of companies are using some vile tactics to delay it
An average job description these days reads something like this. Duties: Everything from editing short films to creating pivot tables in Excel to wowing clients with interpretative dance! Hours: Every single hour in the day. Qualifications: 15 years in this field, plus a PhD. Compensation: Haha, why would we tell you that? Nah, you’re going to have to waste your time filling in a ton of paperwork and going to a bunch of interviews before we’ll let you in on that little secret. For now, all we can say is that it’s “competitive”. But not so “competitive” that we’re keen to advertise it.
As anyone who has ever looked for a job knows, companies can be maddeningly cryptic about their compensation packages; it’s pretty rare to see a salary range in job postings. But that’s starting to change. There is a growing body of evidence that salary transparency is a powerful tool in closing the gender and racial pay gap, and there’s increasing pressure around the world for employers to start being more open about what they pay people. The EU, for example, is currently mulling a groundbreaking proposal that would mean large employers would have to provide salary ranges on job ads and workers would have the right to request pay data broken down by gender and job level.
