Shenanigans like this are one more reason we don't hire people residing in CA, CO or WA. I'm totally serious too - residency in these states is a hard next for us. Why you ask? Because we have enough real problems to deal with in business as it is and stepping into a bureaucratic web of this kind can only invite trouble and there's plenty of talent to be found elsewhere that doesn't encumber the company with additional regulatory scrutiny.
We're small fish here but I'd imagine if we're thinking like this, larger companies must certainly be at least taking this into consideration. In effect, this is The State attempting to Price Fix around jobs-of-a-feather. No matter the intention, this is not The States business.
The only possible purpose of making laws like this is so that the state can try to enforce some remedy whereby we're told how much we have to or are allowed to pay someone. Who in their right mind wants to sign up for that kind of risk?
EDIT: When I say "one more reason" I mean specifically CA, its simply not cost effective to hire talent from there. CA taxes and cost of living are such that making a competitive offer to a candidate residing there is simply too costly from a compensation perspective. Plenty of people-talent exists in states with more favorable cost of living and tax schemes.
>The only possible purpose of making laws like this is so that the state can try to enforce some remedy whereby we're told how much we have to or are allowed to pay someone. Who in their right mind wants to sign up for that kind of risk?
How is this the logical conclusion you arrive at? Do you as a company not have a salary range for headcount? Do you not expect prices to be posted by your vendors leading to a lack in informational symmetry and haggling during every routine interaction?
Imagine if your landlord could arbitrarily raise your rent an untold amount with no notice. You of course have options, move or negotiate. But the informational asymmetry means it is harder for you to know if you are getting a good deal if every other landlord is listing their rent as $1-100000 per month or not telling you until after you spent the time checking out the property only to find it is way outside your budget.
The time cost of candidates finding your job, doing some basic research, prepping for X rounds of interviews, possible homework, dealing with hiring managers/ recruiters is insane once you figure folks usually apply to multiple jobs. Why not just tell them up front the salary like you do for role expectations and company culture drivel? Posting honest salary bands is fine to me, say seniors will get $100-150k or whatever, but the article shows clear malice towards any legitimate transparency up front.
But in pretty much all cases, the renter incurs possibly substantial costs in time, money, and general well-being. So the mere act imposes a cost on the renter, even if the renter never pays the landlord an extra cent. Landlords know this, and if they can estimate those costs, they are able to increase rent freely as long as the present value of the rent increase is still less than the cost of moving and/or getting a lawyer. Employers have the same power, especially in tight labor markets.
Whether or not posting salary bands for a given position is a good idea or not a good idea, It rubs me the wrong way that a state government somehow imagines it has the authority to mandate this. And for what purpose? Why does a state make a law if not to enforce some as yet undefined remedy? What will this remedy be? I don't think we know yet but I for one do not want to find out. I have enough other problems to be concerned with.
There are 2 boxes in front of you each containing a tasty red apple. One of those boxes is filled with barbed wire, razor blades and broken glass with an apple in the middle. The other is just an empty box with an apple in it, and it happens to be priced lower.
The reason for the regulation is the same reason that a lot of regulations are made: companies refuse to do something that’s one of good/common sense/not evil unless they’re absolutely forced to.
The unwillingness of some to comply with the spirit (posting absurd ranges) of the law shows how there is no chance the information asymmetry between worker and the potential employer would be fixed by letting the companies do as they will.
What possible hazards do you honestly feel the WA law is leading to?
I’m all for it. Less for tech workers and more for blue collar workers who don’t have nearly as much career mobility. Having them able to understand the current wider market when looking will only help them get better and more livable work.
You talk about a bureaucratic web, but this is really just about posting a pay range, which is entirely reasonable. Job applicants don't want to spend hours, sometimes even days, on a job application process only to discover at the very end that the pay is way too low for them to realistically consider. It's easy information to share upfront, and can save both parties a lot of time and effort.
Now if you don't want to hire from CA because people expect too high salary, then posting this salary range upfront will actually accomplish exactly what you need: people for whom the pay is too low will not respond and not waste your time.
> In effect, this is The State attempting to Price Fix around jobs-of-a-feather. No matter the intention, this is not The States business.
This has nothing to do with price fixing. You can still decide your own pay range. It's just for transparency.
> The only possible purpose of making laws like this is so that the state can try to enforce some remedy whereby we're told how much we have to or are allowed to pay someone.
No, the only purpose of laws like this is to increase transparency and thereby make the labor market more a free market. I really don't understand your concern here.
>the only purpose of laws like this is to increase transparency and thereby make the labor market more a free market. I really don't understand your concern here.
If your offers aren't competitive for CA candidates, then it makes sense not to waste time recruiting them. Another way to accomplish this would be to post your salary ranges. Candidates who don't find it competitive won't apply at all. You may find some candidates in California who do find it competitive (perhaps outside the major metro areas). And you might avoid interviewing candidates from other regions who would never have accepted your offer.
Yes it's definitely a conspiracy by state governments to control your business, and not an attempt to decrease the asymmetry in labor markets, which without intervention strongly favors employers.
Posting a salary range is hardly burdensome. The only “shenanigans” going on here is businesses willfully disregarding the intent of the law in furtherance of maintaining a status quo in which job seekers are at a significant disadvantage.
I’m not necessarily in favor of these pay transparency laws, but this comment is paranoid hyperbole. Posting a pay range is not some slippery slope to wage fixing, nor is it some insurmountable bureaucratic hurdle. It’s frankly just an administrative checkbox that may (or may not if the range is too large to be useful) waste less time with upwardly mobile candidates. There is 0% chance California starts mandating salaries at the mid to high end.
In our business an important factor is the personal/business/relationships network of the candidate we're talking with. You can see how this would be highly variable between 2 candidates. There is no "salary" or "salary range" in our case. We're not talking about hiring developers here but more Business Development types. It's hard to rank those people on a standard basis.
I agree with the trend you mention, but the fact that it is bi-directional preference may even things out a bit.
States can focus on attracting employers by having business-friendly taxes, minimal labor laws, minimal environmental protection, and other corporate-friendly regulations. If they can attract and retain companies then people who need work will follow.
Other states focus on attracting employees by having stronger worker-protection laws, strict environmental regulations, and amenities like education/arts/healthcare/transit. If they can attract and retain people then companies who need access to that labor pool will follow.
Depending on their constraints, industries seem to gravitate towards states on one end of that continuum or the other. For example, there seems to be more manufacturing and agriculture than the US average in employer-friendly states and more technology and finance than the US average in employee-friendly states.
I avoid NY in addition. I need to take out like 6 kinds of extra insurance (family leave insurance)?? Just not worth it. I’ll stick to the Midwest and lower east coast please!
I don't know if we have a hard rule or not, but HR has cautioned us against bringing in talent from CA multiple times over the years. Right now, our employees all reside central or eastern. I have a feeling we will not hire anyone living west of ATX for a long time.
Beyond the bureaucracy issues, keeping to ~2 timezones is turning into a strategic advantage at our scale. If we had to do mountain & pacific as well, things would get much more complicated.
"The only possible purpose of making laws like this"...
Is for pay transparency. And in the vast, overwhelming percentage of the time, an employer knows precisely what they're planning to pay for a role, with extremely little variance. These cherry picked examples don't really mean a lot.
As to your imaginary firm not hiring in "CA, CO or WA", absolutely nothing was lost by the residents of those states.
It's not about penalizing people residing in certain states. It's about not taking on additional regulatory burden. In a free country this is a choice we're allowed to make and we're willing to accept the trade off.
It takes a lot of effort to type one sentence on a job posting.
If you're hiring you already know what you're willing to pay for the position. It really isn't that hard to write that down where people besides just HR can see.
We're small fish here but I'd imagine if we're thinking like this, larger companies must certainly be at least taking this into consideration. In effect, this is The State attempting to Price Fix around jobs-of-a-feather. No matter the intention, this is not The States business.
The only possible purpose of making laws like this is so that the state can try to enforce some remedy whereby we're told how much we have to or are allowed to pay someone. Who in their right mind wants to sign up for that kind of risk?
EDIT: When I say "one more reason" I mean specifically CA, its simply not cost effective to hire talent from there. CA taxes and cost of living are such that making a competitive offer to a candidate residing there is simply too costly from a compensation perspective. Plenty of people-talent exists in states with more favorable cost of living and tax schemes.