Shin Ji Won reports
Edit: LRS
No longer have to be a salary riddler?
Since January 1, the Wage Transparency Law, which has been implemented across the country, has finally been implemented in California!
The bill requires all companies with more than 15 employees to disclose wages in job listings, from hourly workers to temporary workers to high-paid technology executives.
As the largest state in the U.S. economy, California employs more than 19 million salaried workers and is home to more than 20 percent of the Fortune 500. As tech giants like Apple, Google, and Meta begin to disclose job salaries, proponents of the bill argue that in the long run, pay transparency will eventually become the norm.
700 tech companies start salaries
Once the law was enacted, a new website, comprehensive.io was launched, aggregating the salary ranges of 700 top tech companies and start-ups, crawling the employers' job boards every day and updating the data.
Website link: https://www.comprehensive.io/
Users can filter through different jobs and companies on the site, but the site currently only provides searches for technology-related jobs in California and New York City.
Here are the annual salary ranges of some of the U.S. tech giants:
1. Amazon: Director of Engineering, $220,000 to $298,000
2. Meta: Deputy General Counsel, $190,000 to $256,000
Apple: iOS engineering manager, $229,000 to $378,000
4. Google: Deputy general manager of engineering, $550,000
5. Microsoft: Director of content design, $259,000 to $277,000
6. Cisco: Director of UX Research, $314,000
7. Twitter: Head of Salary and Stocks, $162,000 to $226,000
8. Tesla: Senior Software Engineer, $83,000 to $418,000
It is worth noting that the salary list disclosed by the company does not include any bonuses or equity.
Salary transparency promotes equal pay for equal work
According to Payscale, a total of 13 cities and states in the U.S. now require employers to share salary information, covering about a quarter of employees.
California's Transparency of Pay Act aims to close the gender and racial pay gap and help minorities and women better participate in the labor market.
Workers can compare their current wages with job listings for the same position to see if their wages are below market rate. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, for every dollar a man earns, a woman earns only 83 cents.
Senator Monique Limón of California, who supports the new law, said that there are many more things we need to do to get men and women paid the same amount of work and the same experience, one of which is to promote transparency in pay ranges.
However, the new disclosures under the law may not tell the whole story of the remuneration for the job.
Companies can choose to display a broader range of compensation, and companies are not required by law to disclose bonuses or share-based compensation.
The California Chamber of Commerce said last year in opposing the bill that it could also penalize workers who pursue higher earnings because of their better experience or skills; Some employers may be wary of posting pay to prevent bidding wars for top talent.
A Meta spokesperson said: "In order to ensure the fairness of the compensation system and eliminate bias, we will regularly conduct pay equity analysis. The latest analysis confirms that Meta continues to advance gender and racial pay equity globally for people in similar jobs.
However, Meta usually pays full-time employees in equity and cash.
New law
California Senate Bill 1162, passed last September and effective January 1 this year, has two key parts.
The first is the pay transparency section of the job listing, which applies to any company with more than 15 employees if the job can be done in California.
The second part requires companies with more than 100 employees to file a salary data report to California, detailing salary information by race, gender and job category. Businesses were previously required to provide a similar report at the federal level, but California is now asking for more details.
Employers must keep detailed records and wage history for each position, which the California Labor Commission can access. California can enforce the law through fines and can investigate violations. Under the new law, these reports will not be published.
Limón said the bill helps close the pay gap by providing information to the public so they can better negotiate pay or judge whether their experience and skills are undervalued, and will also help the state ensure that businesses comply with existing equal pay laws for equal work.
This is important because we can't solve problems that we can't see.
Limón also hopes the requirement will help California businesses recruit the best talent and compete with other states that don't require employers to post salaries.
Salary transparency laws may also prompt companies to raise wages after discovering that competitors offer higher pay, and some companies may even choose to publish salary ranges on unwanted job listings.
Limón believes that ensuring that women and people of color receive equal pay will help California's economy grow.
Legal loopholes
The new law doesn't require employers to publish total compensation, meaning companies can omit information on stock grants and bonuses, providing an incomplete report for some high-paying jobs.
For high-paying jobs in the tech industry, equity compensation in the form of restricted stock units can account for a large percentage of employees' take-home pay; In industries such as finance, bonuses also account for a large portion of annual salary.
Zuhayeer Musa, co-founder of Levels.fyi, said that for tech company employees, what they want to know is total compensation, as stock-based compensation can exceed 50 percent of total actual compensation.
And the shares of big tech companies are very liquid and can basically be sold on the stock market immediately.
The new law also only requires companies to offer a broad compensation range, which could range between minimum and maximum wages for certain positions to exceed $100,000 or more.
While this may seem contrary to the original intent of the law, there is a general consensus that pay ranges are reasonable, as base salaries can vary significantly depending on skills, seniority, experience and location.
Lulu Seikaly, a senior corporate lawyer at Payscale, said companies may be willing to hire experienced candidates for a particular job opening, ranging from entry-level to higher.
She advises clients to publish job listings with specific qualifications to narrow down potential compensation.
Some Californian companies don't list salaries for jobs in other states, but proponents hope California's new law will trigger more payroll disclosures nationwide.
After all, a job listing with a clear starting salary or range may attract more candidates than a job listing with unclear pay.
Seikaly believes that pay transparency is still very immature, and in another 5 to 10 years, salary disclosure will eventually become the norm.
Resources:
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/05/heres-how-much-top-tech-jobs-in-california-pay-according-to-job-ads.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/a-new-website-compiles-tech-salaries-see-your-jobs-worth-2023-1