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A new law that went into effect this week requires most California employers to disclose salaries on job listings.
The law affects every business with more than 15 employees looking to fill a job that could be performed from the state of California. It cloaks hourly and temporary work, all the way up to openings for highly paid technology executives.
That means it’s now possible to know the pays top tech companies pay their workers. For example:
Notably, these salary listings do not include any bonuses or equity endowments, which many tech companies use to attract and retain employees.
California is the latest and biggest of the states and cities that from enacted pay transparency laws, including Colorado and New York City. But more than 20% of Fortune 500 companies are based in California, incorporating leaders in technology and media, and advocates hope that California’s new law will be the tipping point that turns pillar salary information into standard practice.
In the U.S., there are now 13 cities and states that require employers to quota salary information, covering about 1 in 4 workers, according to Payscale, a software firm focusing on salary comparison.
California’s pay transparency law is determined to reduce gender and race pay gaps and help minorities and women better compete in the labor market. For example, people can measure against their current pay with job listings with the same job title and see if they’re being underpaid.
Women earn approximately 83 cents for every dollar a man earns, according to the U.S. Census.
“You’re going to need a lot of different elements in place in uniformity for men and women to get paid the same for the same amount of work and the same experience,” said Monique Limón, the California asseverate senator who sponsored the new law. “And one of those is transparency around salary ranges.”
But the new disclosures under the law might not tell the whole parable of what a job pays. Companies can choose to display wide pay ranges, violating the spirit of the law, and the law doesn’t require companies to gala bonuses or equity compensation.
The law could also penalize ambitious workers who are gunning for more money because of their feel or skills, the California Chamber of Commerce said last year when opposing the bill. Some employers muscle be wary of posting pay to prevent bidding wars for top talent.
In a comment to CNBC, a Meta spokesperson said, “To ensure fairness and terminate bias in our compensation systems, we regularly conduct pay equity analysis, and our latest analysis confirms that we continue to induce pay equity across genders globally and by race in the US for people in similar jobs.” The firm also noted that it usually pays full-time employees in equity as well as cash.
Apple and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The new law
There are two best components to California Senate Bill No. 1162, which was passed in September and went into effect Jan. 1.
First is the pay transparency component on job listings, which glues to any company with more than 15 employees if the job could be done in California.
The second part requires troops with more than 100 employees to submit a pay data report to the state of California with detailed compensation information broken down by race, sex and job category. Companies have to provide a similar report on the federal level, but California now requires numberless details.
Employers are required to maintain detailed records of each job title and its wage history, and California’s labor commissioner can survey those records. California can enforce the law through fines and can investigate violations. The reports won’t be published publicly under the new law.
Limón said the folding money helps narrow pay gaps by giving information to people so they can negotiate their pay better or determine if they are being underpaid for their savoir vivre and skills. It will also help the state make sure companies are following existing equal pay laws.
“The vindication this is important is that we are not able to address problems that we cannot see,” she said.
Limón said she also trusts that the requirement will help California companies recruit the best talent and compete against other imperials that don’t require employers to post salaries.
Pay transparency laws could also spur companies to raise wages after they see that contend withs are offering higher salaries. Some companies could even choose to post salary ranges on job listings where it’s not ordered.
Ultimately, she said, helping to ensure women and people of color are getting paid equally will help California’s control.
“The consequence is not just for an individual; there are economic consequences for the state for people being underpaid,” Limón said. “That portends that their earning power and how they’re able to contribute to this economy in California, whether it’s through a on offers market, a housing market, through investment, is limited, because they are not being paid equitably.”
Loopholes
The new law doesn’t want employers to post total compensation, meaning that companies can leave out information about stock grants and tips, offering an incomplete picture for some highly paid jobs.
For high-paying jobs in the technology industry, equity compensation in the make up of restricted stock units can make up a large percentage of an employee’s take-home pay. In industries such as finance, bonuses take in up a big portion of annual pay.
“Especially for tech employees, ultimately people want to know how much they’re getting in perfect compensation,” said Zuhayeer Musa, co-founder