re: New law in New York requires employers to disclose salaries for all job opportunities

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I don’t know about y’all but that’s a great thing if you ask me.

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I guess it’s a great thing like Carmax is a great thing. Good for those that hate negotiating, ultimately it’s worse for the labor force because employers can essentially cap starting pay.

Having said that, I’ve gone through more than one interview process that proved to be a waste of both of our time

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A law that is actually grounded in common sense.

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It had to happen eventually, even if by accident.

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As always new hire budgets are higher than the retention budgets for whatever reason.

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It’s a calculated risk based on the question - what percentage of current employees will actually leave for more money?

Here’s an example:

Let’s say market value for new hires is ~10% above what you’re currently paying your employees. HR thinks that there are two options:
A. If you raise everyone’s salary by 8%, you don’t lose anyone.

B. If you give everyone a 3% COL raise, you will lose 5% of your staff to the market.

Option A means your total salary pool has to increase by 8%.

Option B means your salary pool has to increase by (3%*95%) + (10%*5%) = 3.35%. So even though you have to pay more to replace the 5% that leave, you’re still saving 4.65% on salaries overall. When you add this up across an entire organization it’s significant.

The counter argument, of course, is that your top performers are more likely to be in the 5% that you lose. And then there’s the question of productivity/revenue impacts, hiring/training costs, etc. which might vary depending on the company and role.

There are a lot of other factors that can impact the calculation as well.. a company with higher overall employee satisfaction (due to culture, work/life balance, or other non-compensation factors) is at lower risk of losing employees which shifts the math in favor of lower salaries.

In any case, there’s going to be an equilibrium and it’s almost always going to be below market value for new hires, at least in the aggregate. It can suck for hiring managers and I think there is often too little emphasis placed on retention, but that’s the overall concept.

A large company needs to have reasonable flexibility for experience and skill via a pay grades/ranges for a specific job title.

They should also have geo-market based adjustments to the pay grades/ranges based on location. It was well known in my former company that the jobs based in NYC, San Francisco, Seattle etc paid more because it cost more to live there.

At the end of the day ...you get what you pay for. If you under pay you will have higher turnover than if you pay fairly. Turnover cost money and it is quantifiable.

How is that legal?

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They should require applicants to disclose what they were paid at their previous or current employer.

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Why should that matter? The company knows what they need and a salary range they are willing to pay for it. If a candidate has the required qualifications their past salary is irrelevant.