21 ms·

EU to mandate public salary information for all job postings [pdf]

459 points by pimterry 5y ago

mhoad 5y ago
I think these proposals go a long way towards closing the asymmetrical advantage that employers have when it comes to salary negotiations and generally creates a much better functioning labour marketplace as a result.
amelius 5y ago
Wouldn't that result in overly broad ranges being advertised?
pimterry 5y ago
The meat is page 5 under "The changes the proposal would bring". Highlights: * Job-seekers would have a right to information about the pay range of posts they apply for * Employers would be prohibited from asking about an applicant's pay history * Employees would have a right to ask their employer for sex-disaggregated information on the average pay of other workers doing the same work or work of equal value. * Employers with at least 250 employees would have to report on their gender pay gap and carry out a pay assessment if the gap exceeds 5 % and cannot be justified. * Compensation would be available to victims of pay discrimination, with the burden of proof placed on the employer and sanctions for infringements of the equal pay rule.
- mustyoshi 5y ago
  How does making salary public and not asking about applicants pay history work? If you tell them your title and employer, can't they just look up what you probably got paid?
  - the_lonely_road 5y ago
    I don't believe salaries are public but instead salary ranges alongside job postings. Someone please correct me if I am wrong as the former would be a much more valuable tool for labor. Under the latter the range for SWE could be 40-80K and so a new employer could possibly find that job posting from around the time you say you were hired but still shouldn't have any idea if you were making the 40k or closer to the 80k. I believe this is intended to curb the market behavior of offering someone a pay you think they will accept rather than offering to pay based on the value of a role. Turning the difference between those two numbers into cream for upper management to butter their bread is the status quo in America at the very least and likely in all of the western world, but leads to systemic discrimination amongst protected groups with weaker negotiating power.
  - DharmaPolice 5y ago
    You would only know what a new starter might be offered, not what someone actually received after a period of time. I don't think the problem is organisations basing salaries on what other employers are offering (that's just market testing) but choosing to pay an individual person more or less based on what they personally managed to negotiate elsewhere. If I'm buddies with my department head and I get an extra $10k because of that, why should other employers replicate that when I move companies? (Note : I don't really agree with this as it's relying on salary secrecy but I think that's the logic.)
  - tpm 5y ago
    No. Individual personal salary is private information protected by law (at least in our country). Starting salary range in job offers is public, that's not enugh information.
    - Hamuko 5y ago
      Salaries might be private here, but taxes sure aren't. A recruiter could feasibly walk into the local tax office and ask to see my taxable income for 2020.
      - FredPret 5y ago
        That’s wild, I can’t believe it. Where is this if you don’t mind me asking?
        Hamuko 5y ago
        Finland. https://www.vero.fi/en/About-us/finnish-tax-administration/data-security-and-information-access/public-information-on-taxes/public-information-on-individual-income-taxes/ https://www.vero.fi/en/About-us/finnish-tax-administration/d...
        mellavora 5y ago
        also true in Sweden
      - tpm 5y ago
        Interesting. Taxes and incomes are private in Slovakia for private persons whether they are employed or self-employed or whatever (unless they are a judge or a politician). They are only public for companies.
  - alistairSH 5y ago
    In the US (I realize the article is about EU), salary information for a given individual is not public* and employers typically will not share it (when queried by a prospective employer, they will only confirm employment history - "yes, Bob worked here for 5 years as a developer"). Several states have implemented similar rules (CO and CA, IIRC). A job listing would typically list either a minimum salary or range for a position. "Senior Developer, $120,000-$150,000" or whatever. Two upsides to this approach... First, an employee is not limited by their current salary - they can negotiate on their value. Second, it's widely accepted that women and minorities tend to be less aggressive salary negotiators. Those two things together, applied over a career, can make a massive reduction in lifetime earnings for employees. * Government jobs are the big exception - you can search for most university salaries because most receive government funding. Same for local government offices.
    - lesuorac 5y ago
      Eh, salary information isn't posted in a newspaper but if your company has a subscription to Equifax they can look it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_Number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_Number
  - tibbetts 5y ago
    Large employers already subscribe to services which tell them what you likely got paid at your last job by geo/title/seniority/tenure.
    - runnerup 5y ago
      And sometimes exactly what you got paid. Actual data from your own paystubs is often for sale as well.
  - jsmcgd 5y ago
    I wonder if this will be one of the unintended (intended?) consequences? Normally the best way to get a pay increase is to apply for jobs that pay a lot more. Previously you could apply for a job that paid much more than your current role. Your new employer might assume that you were on something similar or a little bit less. Now employers will be able to see what you were paid previously and will probably not offer much of a pay increase, or you'll have to have a really good reason why you think your salary should be doubled.
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    Yes, but they wouldn't get an exact figure because it's a range. Anyway it doesn't really matter; you apply for a job, if you don't meet the criteria, that's fine. But if you DO meet the criteria but pay you a little more than your previous job, but less than others with the same job, that's going to be tackled by this legislation. The best they can do is that instead of underpaying you, they will say "You did not pass the interview process for this job".
- 0xedd 5y ago
  despite pay gap shown time and time again to be fiction, government monkeys are still dancing to that out of key tune.
  - boomskats 5y ago
    Any external references to back up your 'pay gap shown time[0] and time again[1] to be fiction' claim? FYI I had to read your comment a few times to try to pick out what you're trying to say without getting distracted by the gratuitous vitriol. It might make you feel better but it's not an effective means of actual communication. [0]: ? [1]: ?
    - simonh 5y ago
      It's not fiction, that's hyperbole, but there are factors other than gender by itself that accounts for a lot of the remaining disparity between men and women's pay. Taking a career break to have children, historical 'steering' of women away from STEM subjects in education, some apparent natural tendency for many women to avoid such subjects even when they have a free choice, a tendency for women to not challenge their compensation or push for raises compared to men, women's tendency to avoid overtime compared to men which can affect their advancement prospects. There are a lot of factors that come down to personal choice, and women often make different choices from men. Nevertheless even controlling for all this there is a remaining gap of a few percent at least, which varies greatly depending on the industrial sector and also by region. Since this thread is about the EU, it's reverent to point out that the gap is particularly high in some EU countries. https://www.epi.org/publication/what-is-the-gender-pay-gap-and-is-it-real/ https://www.epi.org/publication/what-is-the-gender-pay-gap-a...
      - gjulianm 5y ago
        > Taking a career break to have children, historical 'steering' of women away from STEM subjects in education, some apparent natural tendency for many women to avoid such subjects even when they have a free choice, a tendency for women to not challenge their compensation or push for raises compared to men, women's tendency to avoid overtime compared to men which can affect their advancement prospects. I mean, all of those are heavily related to gender. And while you can frame them as "personal choice", that's only useful when analyzing an individual. When a significant part of the women make these choices that hurt their salaries and work prospects, one maybe should think about how society is influencing those choices, and turns out the vector is gender.
- tialaramex 5y ago
  > Employers would be prohibited from asking about an applicant's pay history Aw, that was one of the fun moments when getting my current job. I moved from private sector to public sector and they're like "You understand that the previous pay you listed is more than our boss's boss, the director of our entire org unit gets paid right?". Yes, yes I do. Which is why when you asked at interview "Why do you want this role?" I didn't say "Because I would like to get rich". But overall this seems like a good idea. Pay transparency is a known good strategy. I remember years ago working for a huge international corporation I asked about pay transparency at one of those bogus "Ask us anything" board events and the CEO answered and he's like, "My pay is a matter of public record because that's the law here" and I'm like "Yes, and it's fine, you can see that now so why not the same for everybody else?" and of course he just deflected. How "inability to give a straight answer on anything" and "refusal to make any meaningful decisions" came to be considered good leadership traits is a mystery to me, but I do know how much it pays so that's nice.
  - dijonman2 5y ago
    The reality is that not everyone brings equal value to an org. Some are rockstars and others are meh. It’s natural, and you should be incentivized to improve.
    - iso1631 5y ago
      The reality is I spend time applying for a job which claims a "competitive" salary for a "network architect", and eventually find it's in the 35-45k range "depending on skills" Those companies then run off to government saying "we can't employ anyone" Fortunately more and more job listings on linked in are listing ballpark salaries so it's easy to ignore them, there's a few coming up which are reasonable salaries for what they want too IMO, so that's good.
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        I get why employer's tendency is to withhold pay information. But ultimately, it's a waste of my time and their time if we're not close enough. So disclosure seems win/win.
- hughrr 5y ago
  I rather liked it when employers asked about pay history because I used to lie about it. I managed to double my salary in two job jumps!
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    You are lucky they did not use equifaxs https://theworknumber.com/ https://theworknumber.com/ to get your salary info. Or maybe they did and your salary info wasn’t there. Many of my employers have reported my salary to that database without my consent. It is easy to obtain. There was an article on HN about it within the last month.
    - Nextgrid 5y ago
      How does a company participate in this system? Are there headcount/turnover/etc requirements? What prevents someone from setting up companies that claim to employ anyone (you can "apply" for a nominal fee online and you get "hired" immediately and your chosen salary figure gets sent to these assholes)?
      - sgerenser 5y ago
        I think it’s difficult unless your company uses a big payroll processor like ADP or Paychex, who in turn report to TheWorkNumber. Faking payroll through one of those companies probably wouldn’t be worth the effort and you’d be setting yourself up for tax issues.
      - mywittyname 5y ago
        Most payroll companies support the integration. So step 1 is probably pay for an expensive payroll platform. They are going to have meta data for the fake company, so your $2MM salary is coming from a 1-10 person company with no website or anything might be suspect.
    - wing-_-nuts 5y ago
      This is why I redirect the question to my comp requirements, instead of my pay history. Any company that absolutely insists on salary history is not one I will work for anyway.
- tomp 5y ago
  Transparency is good, but what about freedom of choice, to enable individuals to act on that information? Ideal would be outlawing non-competes.
  - ATsch 5y ago
    They are already effectively outlawed in most of the EU. E.g. in Germany, you must be paid at least 50% of your current salary while the clause is active, for a maximum of two years and "unreasonably broad" clauses are invalid.
    - tomp 5y ago
      If by “effectively outlawed” you mean “not effectively outlawed at all”, then yes, sure. How many people can survive for 2 years on 50% lower salary? In addition, the biggest impediment of non-competes is actually the inflexibility (“your job offer sounds amazing, I’ll start working in 18-24 months!”).
      - throwawayben 5y ago
        The point is that will very very rarely happen because how many companies are actually going to pay that much to stop you working at a competitor? And if they ARE willing to do it, then you probably held a very high status job there and so 50% will still be a lot.
      - Bayart 5y ago
        The assumption is that a job that would incentivize non-competes would be so well paid that 50% would still be comfortable, isn't it ?
        tomp 5y ago
        From my experience working in finance in London, no. Good salary? Sure! Able to live comfortably with 50% salary (when rent is 30-50% of take-home pay)? Zero chance. In practice the biggest impediment to even longer non-competes is legal risk; the tiny chance of an employee challenging the non-compete in court and the court ruling unreasonable or overly broad, would result in all other employees knowing their non-competes are effectively void.
- ensignavenger 5y ago
  What I could not find in the document is how it defines 'equal work' and 'equal value'?
  - aembleton 5y ago
    Its a job for lawyers.
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    Job title -> pay range. If you do work that does not match your job title (or job description) and your boss refuses to acknowledge it, I'm confident there's existing legal pathways to deal with it - with the help of unions if need be.
    - dahfizz 5y ago
      What about flat companies? At my current company, everyone is simply a software engineer and you are paid based on your value. Everyone seems happy with the arrangement.
      - ncpa-cpl 5y ago
        > What about flat companies? I also work in a flat company. Actually some weeks ago, one of my colleagues was applying to a new credit card. So the bank called our HR team to very a colleague's salary. I ended up taking the call due to a mishap on the phone system. So they needed to double check her salary, because she had mentioned 50% raise but no change in her job title. So I had to explain that's the way our company is.
      - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
        Same problem here... small company, everybody does everything, same title, but different hours and output. I guess we'll have to think of unique position names for everybody
  - trashtester 5y ago
    Pretty sure the wording is intentially fuzzy, so the special interest groups can add the meaning after it becomes law. I would expect them to push for a Marxist view on "value" of work, basically each hour is of equal value, but where you adjust for number of years of formal education, again where the type of eduction is not important. A developer with a MSc from a top college may be compared to someone with an MSc/MA in Sociology, working in the HR department, for instance. The key alternative is to gauge value based on market demand, but where I live (Northern Europe), those who advocate "equal pay for work of equal value" don't seem to go for that. Instead, they claim that nurses and engineers should have the same salary, as the length of their education is different, at least for people employed by the public.
- gigatexal 5y ago
  I love this. This is amazing. This is going to make salary negotiations a bit more transparent.
- ksec 5y ago
  >* Employers would be prohibited from asking about an applicant's pay history Would they be able to contact previous employer for this information. One of the thing I really hate is the amount of leverage your previous employer has over you.
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    That is the only good bullet point in my opinion. Otherwise I don't see the positives. It would probably lead to pay depression in any case.
- Gareth321 5y ago
  >Employees would have a right to ask their employer for sex-disaggregated information on the average pay of other workers doing the same work or work of equal value. This is literally impossible in anything other than rote manual labour. Even then, I'm not convinced this is possible.
  - mhoad 5y ago
    I don’t know this sounds like it maps to a SQL query to me assuming you use consistent job titles and possibly the concept of “grades” e.g Level 1 Software Engineer
    - Gareth321 5y ago
      I'm glad you related it to my industry because I can assure you that not every L3 in Google contributes the same value to the company. They have vastly different backgrounds, education, experience, and aptitudes. Some are willing to work 80 hour weeks. Some aren't. Some are very skilled in technologies which aren't in-demand and don't currently generate a lot of value for Google. Some work on projects which generate a lot of value for Google. Some have excellent qualifications but little experience. Some have lots of experience but no qualifications. Some are extroverts and some are introverts. Some are great at communicating their thoughts and ideas. Some aren't. Some are grumpy and surly. Some are super friendly. There are thousands and thousands of ways in which an L3 is not the same as another L3, and I promise you, no two L3s generate exactly the same value to Google.
      - mhoad 5y ago
        As I said in another comment though surely this is the precise reason for bonus structures no? Where you as the business owner / operator can both reward the above and beyond efforts and try to incentivise more of it in the future.
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    Err, no it's not, big engineering firms (google, facebook, etc) have formalized job titles and 'ranks' and provide a clear path for advancement - and they publish pay ranges for those titles/ranks.
- cm2012 5y ago
  Bullets 1-3 are excellent reforms that should be the case everywhere. Bullet 4 could end up with bad consequences because there's so many ways to fudge the data. And justification is in the eye of the beholder. For instance, in digital marketing, direct response advertising roles tend to be higher paid than marketing roles without strict KPIs (brand, organic social, etc.) Direct response advertising, for whatever reason, is split 80% men/20% women, with men and women making the same (high) salaries. The softer marketing roles make significantly less on average, and are 80% women/20% men. Can this law distinguish between a direct response marketer and a brand marketer, both of whom may be running Facebook and Youtube ads? Would a giant bureaucracy know or care about these nitty gritty differences in 1000s of industries? I foresee a lot of headache.
  - craigie 5y ago
    Can this law distinguish between a direct response marketer and a brand marketer Yes that's not equal work. You have to compare two brand marketers.
    - s3r3nity 5y ago
      > Yes that's not equal work. You have to compare two brand marketers. The devil's in the details here though, as the debate can come under work of "equal value."
    - cm2012 5y ago
      When a marketer lodges a complaint and points out they did 80% of the same work as the other person (Planning ad campaigns, getting creative made, launching on ad channels, etc.), the EU, not being subject matter experts, is going to have a hard time figuring out who is right.
- bufferoverflow 5y ago
  > Job-seekers would have a right to information about the pay range And there you go, they can just list $1 - $999999, but you won't be offered the higher end of that range. "OH, that's for really special candidates who know Javascript and speak Korean and Farsi"
aborsy 5y ago
Honestly, it’s going to be embarrassing with these low salaries when we socialize with non EU colleagues!
- stefs 5y ago
  like whom? americans? londoners? africans? indians? but you're right that 60000 INR sounds like a lot more than 3000 EUR, because, uh, the number is 20 times (!!!) bigger.
- invalidusernam3 5y ago
  It's all relative to cost of living.
  - dathinab 5y ago
    Yes, though you also have to look into details. Like as far as I can tell the "actual" cost of living in the US diverges quite a bit from the "surface level" cost you might find when googling ad-hoc. As far as I can tell this is because (but not limited to) factors like the health system being prone to having high hidden costs, or also small things like you being required to have a care in many metro areas or thinks you are "socially expected" to strive for like owning a house or a more expensive car. I'm pretty sure similar things apply for other countries, too.
    - sofixa 5y ago
      Also don't forget that many people in some countries start in the negative with student loans, which is relatively rare, and when present at much lower rates, in the EU.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
  … until you take into account everything covered by welfare states.
  - avs733 5y ago
mtmail 5y ago
Related "Pay Transparency: European Commission proposes measures" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30429182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30429182 It's still a proposal not a mandate or requirement yet.
JCM9 5y ago
These laws don’t have the effect people think they will in tech given that “salary” is often a small part of someone’s overall compensation. A role might say it has a $150,000 “salary” but if someone has say $300,000 in RSUs on top of that then they’re really making $450,000 with a $150,000 “salary”. Eg in the US employers must publish the “salary” for certain visa applicants, but those numbers are often only a small fraction of total comp because they exclude equity-based compensation. Given that different companies give different cash/equity mix in their comp plans this leads to a lot of misleading data points about the pay of various companies. One company many look like it it’s more (because it does in cash salary) but actually the total pay relative to others is much less (eg because they give out less stock).
- tux3 5y ago
  Sounds like that creates two incentives, one the one hand to mention directly in the job posting whether salary will be a small part of someone's overall compensation, on the other hand this might also incentive companies to push the salary/stock ratio up to appear more competitive.
  - JCM9 5y ago
    Given the wide availability of more complete data points on total comp packages from other sources (eg levels.fyi) it’s unlikely a “government mandated salary database” will add any net new information in many cases, and per above that government salary data will likely be misleading at best. I do get that the optics look good though and it makes politicians feel like they’re doing something.
    - soco 5y ago
      Barely published and the US tech sector is looking for ways to minimize its effect or bypass it completely.
    - sofixa 5y ago
      levels.fyi is dependent on people willing disclosing, and is of course for very limited sectors of the job market.
throw0101a 5y ago
Ontario, Canada had this but it was repealed. :( * https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-ontario-job-salary-pay-transparency-law-1.4879510 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-ontario-job... Federally regulated industries in Canada have to do it: * https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/news/2020/11/backgrounder-new-pay-transparency-measures-in-federally-regulated-workplaces.html https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/news/...
- brummm 5y ago
  Of course it's fucking Doug Ford...
- mrmuagi 5y ago
  Doesn't seem like it was repealed from the first link, just not yet applied due to pushing it out into the future? Although the personal emergency leave days and minimum wage freezes do not inspire confidence.
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    A technical manoeuvre: passed by the legislature but did not received royal ascent from the lieutenant governor (or something akin to that effect).
Raed667 5y ago
Is there anything in this text that would prevent a company from posting offers with very large ranges? "this position salary can be from €35k to 75k€ depending on multiple factors" Such ranges would render it pointless
- lentil_soup 5y ago
  I'm not sure. If you can afford to be picky such a large range might be a bit of a red flag. Also, if I'm looking for something close to the top of the range the possibility that I may get a way lower offer might put me off. Specially if I'll need to fight the company to get the top of the range salary.
  - LanceH 5y ago
    I can think of some unusual situations with a really small company. Say you're looking for people who can do two tasks and those two tasks either don't come along in the same person or take too much time for one person. So you're looking for two people, but you're also looking for one of them to be senior and head up the team -- you don't care which one. I feel like this comes up in the sub 10 people startup situation. You need someone to work on anything that comes through the door, and you need junior guys to just pick up the grunt work and do tasks.
- astaunton 5y ago
  I would think that it will be benchmarked and compared against the same role/roles in other Europen countries (taking in to account cost of living etc). So as an example Junior Software Engineer / Developer in one European country may be 35-45k salary but could be 30k-40k elsewhere (where property prices / food prices etc are lower). This would also may it easier for job applicants to know what the expected pay scale is before interviewing (in my experience recruiters often contact people with roles that would be below their salary expectation e.g. software developer with 10 years experience being sent a role with a salary scale equivalent to a recent graduate)
- new_here 5y ago
  I think this is going to be the natural side-effect. I remember seeing Monzo posting salary ranges of £40k - £100k for certain positions. So for the right person they'll make a plan but they can also lure in more candidates and low-ball them when making an offer at the end of the process.
kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
I_am_tiberius 5y ago
Great then everyone knows the minimum salary I earn. I always wanted that.
- nivenkos 5y ago
  It's public in many countries anyway - Norway and Sweden at least have public tax returns.
  - froh 5y ago
    What do you mean public tax returns? Public to who?
    - lordnacho 5y ago
      Meaning there's a website where I can look up the incomes of my Norwegian friends.
  - the-dude 5y ago
    How many?
  - I_am_tiberius 5y ago
    > It's public in many countries anyway That doesn't mean it's good and it is not public in all countries. I don't consider this a valid argument.
    - froh 5y ago
      Nor does it mean it's bad. Also how do others know that some job ad matches the job that you are doing? https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=salary+transparency&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=sala...
  - nix23 5y ago
    +1 for Switzerland
  - 5y ago
6510 5y ago
You know its a crap proposal when heroic bragging about equal pay for everyone ends up being about the gender gap only. Age, religion, nationality and the classic: "I don't like you" not included.
- 6510 5y ago
  ok, perhaps put a bit blunt. The result is that people looking for equal reward end up digging though bloated discrimination laws seemingly talking about everyone except them. IMHO if you have to be a member of a protected group or gender it is unequal treatment. It is the exact behavior we were trying to get rid of. Lets do equality without some being more equal than others.
trabant00 5y ago
I find myself at the other end of the equal pay problem - I am equally payed with equally titled but not equally working coworkers. The entire management chain has clearly different expectations from me: I get most if not all of the difficult tasks and my coworkers rely daily on my guidance. In this quarter discussion with my manager I've been told I can not get a pay raise as it would create a discrepancy with my coworker salaries. As an current EU and formal communist republic citizen I find this worrying to say the least. The only option I have is to work less and browse youtube more. As that brings back communist memories I started looking for another job. So I guess my question is how do they plan to measure the work part of "equal pay for equal work"?
- zibzab 5y ago
  How is this any different from the normal state of affairs? You think you work too much and are paid too little? Then leave, this has nothing to do with "equal pay".
  - seneca 5y ago
    > How is this any different from the normal state of affairs? They explained that in their post. They aren't getting a raise because it would create a discrepancy with the pay bands. This is exactly the type of bureaucracy being enshrined in law here. It removes discretion and disincentivises those who are capable. I believe their point is that it's thematically similar to the company policy they chafed under, and were reminded of communism by.
    - machinerychorus 5y ago
      but that's still a diversion from the real problem: their boss isn't willing to give them a raise. Even with this legislation, if the boss wanted to give a raise they could simply change the salary and give a new title. The "pay bands" is just another excuse from a bad manager, and if the pay bands didn't exist then the manager would just find a different excuse.
- froh 5y ago
BurningFrog 5y ago
I look forward to when every human interaction is finally regulated in law, and we're still not happy.
- unnouinceput 5y ago
  And that's a good thing, no? I mean if we were happy with current state of things we'd still be living in caves. Bickering and not being happy is what drives progress forward. You want it better than current state of affairs, for you/your kids and that makes the human brain jump from riding on horseback to riding in a Tesla in roughly 200 hundred years.
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    We can still be happy with the current state regarding some things, and not happy with the state of other things.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  Every human interaction? No, it won't be regulated. (Almost) every human interaction between a company and an actual human? In most cases, yes please.
  - balozi 5y ago
    Well...what happens when company lawyers and lobbyist are the ones drafting regulations governing every human interaction with said company?
    - estaseuropano 5y ago
      Does that sound like initiatives written by corporate lawyers?
      - totony 5y ago
        Who do you believe this affects more. Big corporations or small/medium businesses EDIT: to be clearer, what if this is to hinder competition? This seems like it would affect small companies disproportionally more than big ones, since small ones will not have a formalized pay system (and probably shouldn't, since value produced is way less obvious).
andai 5y ago
My admittedly limited understanding of the gender pay gap is that it is based on gender differences in interests (eg. career-wise), differences in willingness to work long hours (especially with age), and differences in temperament, ie. women on the whole having lower assertiveness and thus being less likely to ask for higher salaries and raises. The "equal work" part takes care of the first two points, ie. the type of work and the amount performed, but it leaves out the negotiation aspect. To emphasize the importance of negotiation: several friends of mine told me their bosses said they could have started with nearly double their starting salaries if they had negotiated better, so this aspect makes a huge difference, at least in engineering. My understanding of the proposed legislation is that the higher (average) salaries, fought for and won by the men, will be given to the women for free (by companies who will be forced to make such information public and fear it will make them look bad). Not saying that's either good or bad, just interesting. Someone please correct me if I'm misunderstanding.
- skummetmaelk 5y ago
  > To emphasize the importance of negotiation: several friends of mine told me their bosses said they could have started with nearly double their starting salaries if they had negotiated better, so this aspect makes a huge difference, at least in engineering. Which clearly means that equal work doesn't pay equally. Surely your colleagues did not do half the work of those who negotiated a higher starting salary? In fact, mandating equal pay for equal work would take care of the negotiation aspect. The tricky part of course is how to measure work accurately.
  - jimbob45 5y ago
    Unless you’re on an assembly line, there is no such thing as “equal work”. Several of my colleagues and I share the same title, yet the women with that title objectively produce less than the men and absolutely deserve less pay (at my company). Is that because of sexism? Or because we judge the individual, not the gender? This seems like a backdoor for Socialism where this backwards logic is used to justify paying everyone the same rate and so people who are massively productive end up subsidizing those who are useless.
MaxMoney 5y ago
kerneloftruth 5y ago
Not every employee in role X is as good as every other employee in role X. The better ones deserve higher pay, which creates an incentive for the others to up their game so that they, too, can earn more. Why try harder if it's run like romper room?
- mhoad 5y ago
  That is what bonus structures are for. Where you can pay extra in addition in order to incentivise better outcomes for your business.
  - wpasc 5y ago
    What enshrines bonuses from being free from these disclosures and regulations? Any law about pay could be extended to bonuses and bonus disparity becomes pay disparity (unless I'm missing some enshrined, unchangeable, legal exemption/difference between bonuses and pay).
    - mhoad 5y ago
      It’s not a law about compensation it’s a law about salary as far as I know. So total compensation is salary plus bonuses in that scenario.
    - craigie 5y ago
      A lot of bonuses in the EU are paid based on numbers. EG. Bonus of 20% of price for every product sold. If I sell 100 product x and you sell 10 product x in the same day we are not doing equal work.
destitude 5y ago
How does this work for US companies working for remote workers who can be from the US or EU?
estaseuropano 5y ago
@dang, i would suggest to change the editorialized title. Its not a fait accompli, its a draft under discussion. E.g. Proposed EU directive on pay transparency andbetter access to justice for victims of pay discrimination.
Markoff 5y ago
When?
macilacilove 5y ago
Each EU country is perfectly capable of intruducing such laws if they feel like it. I don't see the benefit of the EU forcing this regulation on the whole bloc.
- ThalesX 5y ago
  I would love to see just how big the disparity is between countries.
- gobip 5y ago
  Just like they can introduce laws to help workers' social protection. Or safety measures. And yet they don't.
beardyw 5y ago
I worked in a consultancy in London in the 80s. Salaries of everyone were available and usually pinned on a notice board. It was very liberating.
nbzso 5y ago
I never started a conversation with a client or an employer, about work without clear idea how much I will get in return. Usually after taxes on a hourly rate measurement. If a company is not giving this information before the interview is not worth any attention at all. Period.
gzer0 5y ago
Is there anything in this mandate that prevents corporations from listing unreasonably large ranges? For the sake of this example, let's say FAANG is looking for a software engineer and the range for the job listing is: 68k - 600k. Would this be allowed? I ask because Denver, Colorado has identical mandated restrictions for job listings, and employers are skirting regulations by offering ridiculously broad ranges, putting everyone back at square one.
- Gasp0de 5y ago
  If I understand correctly they basically list what other people in the same role in the same company are paid. E.g. the company has 5 junior software developers and they are paid between 40k and 60k€ then that must be listed as the range if a new junior software developer is recruited.
- cbg0 5y ago
  Candidates will be more attracted towards positions that list accurate ranges. Also, for this mandate there's this gem: "Employees would have a right to ask their employer for sex-disaggregated information on the average pay of other workers doing the same work or work of equal value."
- advisedwang 5y ago
  I'm very interested in this too. OTOH it can't be worse than no info at all!
- realusername 5y ago
  The lower range still gives some information and will probably be used as an indication of what the company is at least willing to pay. If they put it way lower than their actual budget, it will scare away the candidates they are targeting.
- d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
  Also, won't companies just make narrow job titles sometimes only held by one person?
fleddr 5y ago
In this proposal, I dislike the very heavy and singular emphasis on gender. In my country, the Netherlands, when accounting for hours worked and the field people work in, the gap is about 5%. Some theorize part of this remaining small gap is men more aggressively negotiating, but I'm unsure. In any case it's pretty much a solved problem. Even more if you consider the trend. girls/women dominate in higher education and the breadwinner model is soon to be flipped. Add to that the fact that in some fields, women are now favored to balance the headcount in terms of diversity. Sometimes in extreme ways even. The university of Eindhoven has stopped considering men altogether in their hiring of professors. Imagine being an absolute guru in your field, fully qualified and wanting to passionately teach at this very high level. But you can't...because you have a penis. None of this is to say that no work remains in this area, but I openly wonder if legislation is proportional to the issue at hand, if there's even an issue in the first place. The legislation seems distrustful of businesses, assuming there's some secret plot against women progressing. I frankly find this type of regulation insulting and degrading to women and minorities. It creates this image that society is strongly working against you at every level, which is vastly overstating things. It also constantly signals to you that you're a helpless creature with no agency, you require special help with every interaction in society, as you can definitely not make it on your own. It must feel terrible to constantly be reminded of the fact that just your gender defines you. You're not a talented female programmer that is creative and a great communicator. No, you're a woman. A special case. It must feel even worse to constantly have to wonder where you've been "helped" in your career and if you're just a diversity token. Did you get that raise based on performance or because it looks good on the Excel sheet sent to the EU? We're even at risk of making nuclear objects out of women. Businesses and male colleagues being scared of them. For example, a recent study showed that female founders do not get useful critical feedback from VCs whilst male founders get harsh but useful feedback. I guess the VCs are scared. Is this what we want in the work place, male-female interactions not based on good intent but based on fear and mistrust? Imagine being a woman and having a bad week. At the end of the week your male manager says: "best week ever, proud of you". Would you at all feel taken serious?
fulafel 5y ago
Heavily editorialized title - for "EU to..." to be accurate it would have to be much further along the legislative process. This is at a draft report stage, not even voted on in committee yet.
nmca 5y ago
Many posts here talk about value-to-employer, but I have only ever seen wages driven by best-alternative-to-negotiated-agreement [0]. I find the discrepancy odd. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/best-alternative-to-a-negotiated-agreement-batna.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/best-alternative-to-a-n...
sfg 5y ago
Where does contracting fit into all of this? If you leave the formal structure of employment and don't fit into the set job titles of a company (or within, but as a contractor and so a different pay band), then can you effectively work around this? If so, then will those currently getting paid more move into contracting? They'd probably end up with more pay (even than they get now) if they did, so will we see a decrease in the statistical pay gap within categories based on formal job titles, but an increase in the real world pay gap between those that are actually earning more and less under the current system? So, it looks better on paper, but - if you care about the difference in pay - it gets worse in reality. Do we see this kind of thing already in the public sector in any countries? They often have public pay bands, but, as I understand things[1], in many places contractors, consultants, and such like can make better money by working outside of this system. So, transparent and formally equal, but actually less equal. I wonder, if we'll one day read about this in the economist. How there is a growing real pay gap, and how it differs from the formal pay gap. How legislators are trying to respond, but businesses and contractors are fighting back. [1] based mostly on anecdote and hearsay, rather than real knowledge, so please correct me! Edited for styling.
- tobylane 5y ago
  It doesn’t fit in. This is employee protections.
- imiric 5y ago
  For contractors the rate is already negotiated up front IME. Either the recruiter will mention the offered rate along with the role details, or you as a contractor will mention what your rate is.
Katzmann1983 5y ago
Money quote: "... more than two-thirds of them have said they are in favour of the publication of average wages by job type and gender at their company (64 %)." Since when are 64% more than two-thirs?
dang 5y ago
Discussed yesterday: Pay Transparency: European Commission proposes measures - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30429182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30429182 - Feb 2022 (44 comments) IIRC, this is a proposal. If so, then the submitted title is inaccurate. Please don't replace titles with misleading ones—that's the opposite of what the guidelines call for: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."

459 points by pimterry 5y ago

I think these proposals go a long way towards closing the asymmetrical advantage that employers have when it comes to salary negotiations and generally creates a much better functioning labour marketplace as a result.

amelius 5y ago

Wouldn't that result in overly broad ranges being advertised?

pimterry 5y ago

The meat is page 5 under "The changes the proposal would bring". Highlights: * Job-seekers would have a right to information about the pay range of posts they apply for * Employers would be prohibited from asking about an applicant's pay history * Employees would have a right to ask their employer for sex-disaggregated information on the average pay of other workers doing the same work or work of equal value. * Employers with at least 250 employees would have to report on their gender pay gap and carry out a pay assessment if the gap exceeds 5 % and cannot be justified. * Compensation would be available to victims of pay discrimination, with the burden of proof placed on the employer and sanctions for infringements of the equal pay rule.

mustyoshi 5y ago
How does making salary public and not asking about applicants pay history work? If you tell them your title and employer, can't they just look up what you probably got paid?
- the_lonely_road 5y ago
  I don't believe salaries are public but instead salary ranges alongside job postings. Someone please correct me if I am wrong as the former would be a much more valuable tool for labor. Under the latter the range for SWE could be 40-80K and so a new employer could possibly find that job posting from around the time you say you were hired but still shouldn't have any idea if you were making the 40k or closer to the 80k. I believe this is intended to curb the market behavior of offering someone a pay you think they will accept rather than offering to pay based on the value of a role. Turning the difference between those two numbers into cream for upper management to butter their bread is the status quo in America at the very least and likely in all of the western world, but leads to systemic discrimination amongst protected groups with weaker negotiating power.
- DharmaPolice 5y ago
  You would only know what a new starter might be offered, not what someone actually received after a period of time. I don't think the problem is organisations basing salaries on what other employers are offering (that's just market testing) but choosing to pay an individual person more or less based on what they personally managed to negotiate elsewhere. If I'm buddies with my department head and I get an extra $10k because of that, why should other employers replicate that when I move companies? (Note : I don't really agree with this as it's relying on salary secrecy but I think that's the logic.)
- tpm 5y ago
  No. Individual personal salary is private information protected by law (at least in our country). Starting salary range in job offers is public, that's not enugh information.
  - Hamuko 5y ago
    Salaries might be private here, but taxes sure aren't. A recruiter could feasibly walk into the local tax office and ask to see my taxable income for 2020.
    - FredPret 5y ago
      That’s wild, I can’t believe it. Where is this if you don’t mind me asking?
      - Hamuko 5y ago
        Finland. https://www.vero.fi/en/About-us/finnish-tax-administration/data-security-and-information-access/public-information-on-taxes/public-information-on-individual-income-taxes/ https://www.vero.fi/en/About-us/finnish-tax-administration/d...
      - mellavora 5y ago
        also true in Sweden
    - tpm 5y ago
      Interesting. Taxes and incomes are private in Slovakia for private persons whether they are employed or self-employed or whatever (unless they are a judge or a politician). They are only public for companies.
- alistairSH 5y ago
  In the US (I realize the article is about EU), salary information for a given individual is not public* and employers typically will not share it (when queried by a prospective employer, they will only confirm employment history - "yes, Bob worked here for 5 years as a developer"). Several states have implemented similar rules (CO and CA, IIRC). A job listing would typically list either a minimum salary or range for a position. "Senior Developer, $120,000-$150,000" or whatever. Two upsides to this approach... First, an employee is not limited by their current salary - they can negotiate on their value. Second, it's widely accepted that women and minorities tend to be less aggressive salary negotiators. Those two things together, applied over a career, can make a massive reduction in lifetime earnings for employees. * Government jobs are the big exception - you can search for most university salaries because most receive government funding. Same for local government offices.
  - lesuorac 5y ago
    Eh, salary information isn't posted in a newspaper but if your company has a subscription to Equifax they can look it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_Number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_Number
- tibbetts 5y ago
  Large employers already subscribe to services which tell them what you likely got paid at your last job by geo/title/seniority/tenure.
  - runnerup 5y ago
    And sometimes exactly what you got paid. Actual data from your own paystubs is often for sale as well.
- jsmcgd 5y ago
  I wonder if this will be one of the unintended (intended?) consequences? Normally the best way to get a pay increase is to apply for jobs that pay a lot more. Previously you could apply for a job that paid much more than your current role. Your new employer might assume that you were on something similar or a little bit less. Now employers will be able to see what you were paid previously and will probably not offer much of a pay increase, or you'll have to have a really good reason why you think your salary should be doubled.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Yes, but they wouldn't get an exact figure because it's a range. Anyway it doesn't really matter; you apply for a job, if you don't meet the criteria, that's fine. But if you DO meet the criteria but pay you a little more than your previous job, but less than others with the same job, that's going to be tackled by this legislation. The best they can do is that instead of underpaying you, they will say "You did not pass the interview process for this job".
0xedd 5y ago
despite pay gap shown time and time again to be fiction, government monkeys are still dancing to that out of key tune.
- boomskats 5y ago
  Any external references to back up your 'pay gap shown time[0] and time again[1] to be fiction' claim? FYI I had to read your comment a few times to try to pick out what you're trying to say without getting distracted by the gratuitous vitriol. It might make you feel better but it's not an effective means of actual communication. [0]: ? [1]: ?
  - simonh 5y ago
    It's not fiction, that's hyperbole, but there are factors other than gender by itself that accounts for a lot of the remaining disparity between men and women's pay. Taking a career break to have children, historical 'steering' of women away from STEM subjects in education, some apparent natural tendency for many women to avoid such subjects even when they have a free choice, a tendency for women to not challenge their compensation or push for raises compared to men, women's tendency to avoid overtime compared to men which can affect their advancement prospects. There are a lot of factors that come down to personal choice, and women often make different choices from men. Nevertheless even controlling for all this there is a remaining gap of a few percent at least, which varies greatly depending on the industrial sector and also by region. Since this thread is about the EU, it's reverent to point out that the gap is particularly high in some EU countries. https://www.epi.org/publication/what-is-the-gender-pay-gap-and-is-it-real/ https://www.epi.org/publication/what-is-the-gender-pay-gap-a...
    - gjulianm 5y ago
      > Taking a career break to have children, historical 'steering' of women away from STEM subjects in education, some apparent natural tendency for many women to avoid such subjects even when they have a free choice, a tendency for women to not challenge their compensation or push for raises compared to men, women's tendency to avoid overtime compared to men which can affect their advancement prospects. I mean, all of those are heavily related to gender. And while you can frame them as "personal choice", that's only useful when analyzing an individual. When a significant part of the women make these choices that hurt their salaries and work prospects, one maybe should think about how society is influencing those choices, and turns out the vector is gender.
tialaramex 5y ago
> Employers would be prohibited from asking about an applicant's pay history Aw, that was one of the fun moments when getting my current job. I moved from private sector to public sector and they're like "You understand that the previous pay you listed is more than our boss's boss, the director of our entire org unit gets paid right?". Yes, yes I do. Which is why when you asked at interview "Why do you want this role?" I didn't say "Because I would like to get rich". But overall this seems like a good idea. Pay transparency is a known good strategy. I remember years ago working for a huge international corporation I asked about pay transparency at one of those bogus "Ask us anything" board events and the CEO answered and he's like, "My pay is a matter of public record because that's the law here" and I'm like "Yes, and it's fine, you can see that now so why not the same for everybody else?" and of course he just deflected. How "inability to give a straight answer on anything" and "refusal to make any meaningful decisions" came to be considered good leadership traits is a mystery to me, but I do know how much it pays so that's nice.
- dijonman2 5y ago
  The reality is that not everyone brings equal value to an org. Some are rockstars and others are meh. It’s natural, and you should be incentivized to improve.
  - iso1631 5y ago
    The reality is I spend time applying for a job which claims a "competitive" salary for a "network architect", and eventually find it's in the 35-45k range "depending on skills" Those companies then run off to government saying "we can't employ anyone" Fortunately more and more job listings on linked in are listing ballpark salaries so it's easy to ignore them, there's a few coming up which are reasonable salaries for what they want too IMO, so that's good.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      I get why employer's tendency is to withhold pay information. But ultimately, it's a waste of my time and their time if we're not close enough. So disclosure seems win/win.
hughrr 5y ago
I rather liked it when employers asked about pay history because I used to lie about it. I managed to double my salary in two job jumps!
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  You are lucky they did not use equifaxs https://theworknumber.com/ https://theworknumber.com/ to get your salary info. Or maybe they did and your salary info wasn’t there. Many of my employers have reported my salary to that database without my consent. It is easy to obtain. There was an article on HN about it within the last month.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    How does a company participate in this system? Are there headcount/turnover/etc requirements? What prevents someone from setting up companies that claim to employ anyone (you can "apply" for a nominal fee online and you get "hired" immediately and your chosen salary figure gets sent to these assholes)?
    - sgerenser 5y ago
      I think it’s difficult unless your company uses a big payroll processor like ADP or Paychex, who in turn report to TheWorkNumber. Faking payroll through one of those companies probably wouldn’t be worth the effort and you’d be setting yourself up for tax issues.
    - mywittyname 5y ago
      Most payroll companies support the integration. So step 1 is probably pay for an expensive payroll platform. They are going to have meta data for the fake company, so your $2MM salary is coming from a 1-10 person company with no website or anything might be suspect.
  - wing-_-nuts 5y ago
    This is why I redirect the question to my comp requirements, instead of my pay history. Any company that absolutely insists on salary history is not one I will work for anyway.
tomp 5y ago
Transparency is good, but what about freedom of choice, to enable individuals to act on that information? Ideal would be outlawing non-competes.
- ATsch 5y ago
  They are already effectively outlawed in most of the EU. E.g. in Germany, you must be paid at least 50% of your current salary while the clause is active, for a maximum of two years and "unreasonably broad" clauses are invalid.
  - tomp 5y ago
    If by “effectively outlawed” you mean “not effectively outlawed at all”, then yes, sure. How many people can survive for 2 years on 50% lower salary? In addition, the biggest impediment of non-competes is actually the inflexibility (“your job offer sounds amazing, I’ll start working in 18-24 months!”).
    - throwawayben 5y ago
      The point is that will very very rarely happen because how many companies are actually going to pay that much to stop you working at a competitor? And if they ARE willing to do it, then you probably held a very high status job there and so 50% will still be a lot.
    - Bayart 5y ago
      The assumption is that a job that would incentivize non-competes would be so well paid that 50% would still be comfortable, isn't it ?
      - tomp 5y ago
        From my experience working in finance in London, no. Good salary? Sure! Able to live comfortably with 50% salary (when rent is 30-50% of take-home pay)? Zero chance. In practice the biggest impediment to even longer non-competes is legal risk; the tiny chance of an employee challenging the non-compete in court and the court ruling unreasonable or overly broad, would result in all other employees knowing their non-competes are effectively void.
ensignavenger 5y ago
What I could not find in the document is how it defines 'equal work' and 'equal value'?
- aembleton 5y ago
  Its a job for lawyers.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Job title -> pay range. If you do work that does not match your job title (or job description) and your boss refuses to acknowledge it, I'm confident there's existing legal pathways to deal with it - with the help of unions if need be.
  - dahfizz 5y ago
    What about flat companies? At my current company, everyone is simply a software engineer and you are paid based on your value. Everyone seems happy with the arrangement.
    - ncpa-cpl 5y ago
      > What about flat companies? I also work in a flat company. Actually some weeks ago, one of my colleagues was applying to a new credit card. So the bank called our HR team to very a colleague's salary. I ended up taking the call due to a mishap on the phone system. So they needed to double check her salary, because she had mentioned 50% raise but no change in her job title. So I had to explain that's the way our company is.
    - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
      Same problem here... small company, everybody does everything, same title, but different hours and output. I guess we'll have to think of unique position names for everybody
- trashtester 5y ago
  Pretty sure the wording is intentially fuzzy, so the special interest groups can add the meaning after it becomes law. I would expect them to push for a Marxist view on "value" of work, basically each hour is of equal value, but where you adjust for number of years of formal education, again where the type of eduction is not important. A developer with a MSc from a top college may be compared to someone with an MSc/MA in Sociology, working in the HR department, for instance. The key alternative is to gauge value based on market demand, but where I live (Northern Europe), those who advocate "equal pay for work of equal value" don't seem to go for that. Instead, they claim that nurses and engineers should have the same salary, as the length of their education is different, at least for people employed by the public.
gigatexal 5y ago
I love this. This is amazing. This is going to make salary negotiations a bit more transparent.
ksec 5y ago
>* Employers would be prohibited from asking about an applicant's pay history Would they be able to contact previous employer for this information. One of the thing I really hate is the amount of leverage your previous employer has over you.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  That is the only good bullet point in my opinion. Otherwise I don't see the positives. It would probably lead to pay depression in any case.
Gareth321 5y ago
>Employees would have a right to ask their employer for sex-disaggregated information on the average pay of other workers doing the same work or work of equal value. This is literally impossible in anything other than rote manual labour. Even then, I'm not convinced this is possible.
- mhoad 5y ago
  I don’t know this sounds like it maps to a SQL query to me assuming you use consistent job titles and possibly the concept of “grades” e.g Level 1 Software Engineer
  - Gareth321 5y ago
    I'm glad you related it to my industry because I can assure you that not every L3 in Google contributes the same value to the company. They have vastly different backgrounds, education, experience, and aptitudes. Some are willing to work 80 hour weeks. Some aren't. Some are very skilled in technologies which aren't in-demand and don't currently generate a lot of value for Google. Some work on projects which generate a lot of value for Google. Some have excellent qualifications but little experience. Some have lots of experience but no qualifications. Some are extroverts and some are introverts. Some are great at communicating their thoughts and ideas. Some aren't. Some are grumpy and surly. Some are super friendly. There are thousands and thousands of ways in which an L3 is not the same as another L3, and I promise you, no two L3s generate exactly the same value to Google.
    - mhoad 5y ago
      As I said in another comment though surely this is the precise reason for bonus structures no? Where you as the business owner / operator can both reward the above and beyond efforts and try to incentivise more of it in the future.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Err, no it's not, big engineering firms (google, facebook, etc) have formalized job titles and 'ranks' and provide a clear path for advancement - and they publish pay ranges for those titles/ranks.
cm2012 5y ago
Bullets 1-3 are excellent reforms that should be the case everywhere. Bullet 4 could end up with bad consequences because there's so many ways to fudge the data. And justification is in the eye of the beholder. For instance, in digital marketing, direct response advertising roles tend to be higher paid than marketing roles without strict KPIs (brand, organic social, etc.) Direct response advertising, for whatever reason, is split 80% men/20% women, with men and women making the same (high) salaries. The softer marketing roles make significantly less on average, and are 80% women/20% men. Can this law distinguish between a direct response marketer and a brand marketer, both of whom may be running Facebook and Youtube ads? Would a giant bureaucracy know or care about these nitty gritty differences in 1000s of industries? I foresee a lot of headache.
- craigie 5y ago
  Can this law distinguish between a direct response marketer and a brand marketer Yes that's not equal work. You have to compare two brand marketers.
  - s3r3nity 5y ago
    > Yes that's not equal work. You have to compare two brand marketers. The devil's in the details here though, as the debate can come under work of "equal value."
  - cm2012 5y ago
    When a marketer lodges a complaint and points out they did 80% of the same work as the other person (Planning ad campaigns, getting creative made, launching on ad channels, etc.), the EU, not being subject matter experts, is going to have a hard time figuring out who is right.
bufferoverflow 5y ago
> Job-seekers would have a right to information about the pay range And there you go, they can just list $1 - $999999, but you won't be offered the higher end of that range. "OH, that's for really special candidates who know Javascript and speak Korean and Farsi"

aborsy 5y ago

Honestly, it’s going to be embarrassing with these low salaries when we socialize with non EU colleagues!

stefs 5y ago
like whom? americans? londoners? africans? indians? but you're right that 60000 INR sounds like a lot more than 3000 EUR, because, uh, the number is 20 times (!!!) bigger.
invalidusernam3 5y ago
It's all relative to cost of living.
- dathinab 5y ago
  Yes, though you also have to look into details. Like as far as I can tell the "actual" cost of living in the US diverges quite a bit from the "surface level" cost you might find when googling ad-hoc. As far as I can tell this is because (but not limited to) factors like the health system being prone to having high hidden costs, or also small things like you being required to have a care in many metro areas or thinks you are "socially expected" to strive for like owning a house or a more expensive car. I'm pretty sure similar things apply for other countries, too.
  - sofixa 5y ago
    Also don't forget that many people in some countries start in the negative with student loans, which is relatively rare, and when present at much lower rates, in the EU.
rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
… until you take into account everything covered by welfare states.
- avs733 5y ago

mtmail 5y ago

Related "Pay Transparency: European Commission proposes measures" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30429182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30429182 It's still a proposal not a mandate or requirement yet.

JCM9 5y ago

These laws don’t have the effect people think they will in tech given that “salary” is often a small part of someone’s overall compensation. A role might say it has a $150,000 “salary” but if someone has say $300,000 in RSUs on top of that then they’re really making $450,000 with a $150,000 “salary”. Eg in the US employers must publish the “salary” for certain visa applicants, but those numbers are often only a small fraction of total comp because they exclude equity-based compensation. Given that different companies give different cash/equity mix in their comp plans this leads to a lot of misleading data points about the pay of various companies. One company many look like it it’s more (because it does in cash salary) but actually the total pay relative to others is much less (eg because they give out less stock).

tux3 5y ago
Sounds like that creates two incentives, one the one hand to mention directly in the job posting whether salary will be a small part of someone's overall compensation, on the other hand this might also incentive companies to push the salary/stock ratio up to appear more competitive.
- JCM9 5y ago
  Given the wide availability of more complete data points on total comp packages from other sources (eg levels.fyi) it’s unlikely a “government mandated salary database” will add any net new information in many cases, and per above that government salary data will likely be misleading at best. I do get that the optics look good though and it makes politicians feel like they’re doing something.
  - soco 5y ago
    Barely published and the US tech sector is looking for ways to minimize its effect or bypass it completely.
  - sofixa 5y ago
    levels.fyi is dependent on people willing disclosing, and is of course for very limited sectors of the job market.

throw0101a 5y ago

Ontario, Canada had this but it was repealed. :( * https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-ontario-job-salary-pay-transparency-law-1.4879510 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-ontario-job... Federally regulated industries in Canada have to do it: * https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/news/2020/11/backgrounder-new-pay-transparency-measures-in-federally-regulated-workplaces.html https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/news/...

brummm 5y ago
Of course it's fucking Doug Ford...
mrmuagi 5y ago
Doesn't seem like it was repealed from the first link, just not yet applied due to pushing it out into the future? Although the personal emergency leave days and minimum wage freezes do not inspire confidence.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  A technical manoeuvre: passed by the legislature but did not received royal ascent from the lieutenant governor (or something akin to that effect).

Raed667 5y ago

Is there anything in this text that would prevent a company from posting offers with very large ranges? "this position salary can be from €35k to 75k€ depending on multiple factors" Such ranges would render it pointless

lentil_soup 5y ago
I'm not sure. If you can afford to be picky such a large range might be a bit of a red flag. Also, if I'm looking for something close to the top of the range the possibility that I may get a way lower offer might put me off. Specially if I'll need to fight the company to get the top of the range salary.
- LanceH 5y ago
  I can think of some unusual situations with a really small company. Say you're looking for people who can do two tasks and those two tasks either don't come along in the same person or take too much time for one person. So you're looking for two people, but you're also looking for one of them to be senior and head up the team -- you don't care which one. I feel like this comes up in the sub 10 people startup situation. You need someone to work on anything that comes through the door, and you need junior guys to just pick up the grunt work and do tasks.
astaunton 5y ago
I would think that it will be benchmarked and compared against the same role/roles in other Europen countries (taking in to account cost of living etc). So as an example Junior Software Engineer / Developer in one European country may be 35-45k salary but could be 30k-40k elsewhere (where property prices / food prices etc are lower). This would also may it easier for job applicants to know what the expected pay scale is before interviewing (in my experience recruiters often contact people with roles that would be below their salary expectation e.g. software developer with 10 years experience being sent a role with a salary scale equivalent to a recent graduate)
new_here 5y ago
I think this is going to be the natural side-effect. I remember seeing Monzo posting salary ranges of £40k - £100k for certain positions. So for the right person they'll make a plan but they can also lure in more candidates and low-ball them when making an offer at the end of the process.

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago

I_am_tiberius 5y ago

Great then everyone knows the minimum salary I earn. I always wanted that.

nivenkos 5y ago
It's public in many countries anyway - Norway and Sweden at least have public tax returns.
- froh 5y ago
  What do you mean public tax returns? Public to who?
  - lordnacho 5y ago
    Meaning there's a website where I can look up the incomes of my Norwegian friends.
- the-dude 5y ago
  How many?
- I_am_tiberius 5y ago
  > It's public in many countries anyway That doesn't mean it's good and it is not public in all countries. I don't consider this a valid argument.
  - froh 5y ago
    Nor does it mean it's bad. Also how do others know that some job ad matches the job that you are doing? https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=salary+transparency&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=sala...
- nix23 5y ago
  +1 for Switzerland
- 5y ago

6510 5y ago

You know its a crap proposal when heroic bragging about equal pay for everyone ends up being about the gender gap only. Age, religion, nationality and the classic: "I don't like you" not included.

6510 5y ago
ok, perhaps put a bit blunt. The result is that people looking for equal reward end up digging though bloated discrimination laws seemingly talking about everyone except them. IMHO if you have to be a member of a protected group or gender it is unequal treatment. It is the exact behavior we were trying to get rid of. Lets do equality without some being more equal than others.

trabant00 5y ago

I find myself at the other end of the equal pay problem - I am equally payed with equally titled but not equally working coworkers. The entire management chain has clearly different expectations from me: I get most if not all of the difficult tasks and my coworkers rely daily on my guidance. In this quarter discussion with my manager I've been told I can not get a pay raise as it would create a discrepancy with my coworker salaries. As an current EU and formal communist republic citizen I find this worrying to say the least. The only option I have is to work less and browse youtube more. As that brings back communist memories I started looking for another job. So I guess my question is how do they plan to measure the work part of "equal pay for equal work"?

zibzab 5y ago
How is this any different from the normal state of affairs? You think you work too much and are paid too little? Then leave, this has nothing to do with "equal pay".
- seneca 5y ago
  > How is this any different from the normal state of affairs? They explained that in their post. They aren't getting a raise because it would create a discrepancy with the pay bands. This is exactly the type of bureaucracy being enshrined in law here. It removes discretion and disincentivises those who are capable. I believe their point is that it's thematically similar to the company policy they chafed under, and were reminded of communism by.
  - machinerychorus 5y ago
    but that's still a diversion from the real problem: their boss isn't willing to give them a raise. Even with this legislation, if the boss wanted to give a raise they could simply change the salary and give a new title. The "pay bands" is just another excuse from a bad manager, and if the pay bands didn't exist then the manager would just find a different excuse.
froh 5y ago

BurningFrog 5y ago

I look forward to when every human interaction is finally regulated in law, and we're still not happy.

unnouinceput 5y ago
And that's a good thing, no? I mean if we were happy with current state of things we'd still be living in caves. Bickering and not being happy is what drives progress forward. You want it better than current state of affairs, for you/your kids and that makes the human brain jump from riding on horseback to riding in a Tesla in roughly 200 hundred years.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  We can still be happy with the current state regarding some things, and not happy with the state of other things.
dmitriid 5y ago
Every human interaction? No, it won't be regulated. (Almost) every human interaction between a company and an actual human? In most cases, yes please.
- balozi 5y ago
  Well...what happens when company lawyers and lobbyist are the ones drafting regulations governing every human interaction with said company?
  - estaseuropano 5y ago
    Does that sound like initiatives written by corporate lawyers?
    - totony 5y ago
      Who do you believe this affects more. Big corporations or small/medium businesses EDIT: to be clearer, what if this is to hinder competition? This seems like it would affect small companies disproportionally more than big ones, since small ones will not have a formalized pay system (and probably shouldn't, since value produced is way less obvious).

andai 5y ago

My admittedly limited understanding of the gender pay gap is that it is based on gender differences in interests (eg. career-wise), differences in willingness to work long hours (especially with age), and differences in temperament, ie. women on the whole having lower assertiveness and thus being less likely to ask for higher salaries and raises. The "equal work" part takes care of the first two points, ie. the type of work and the amount performed, but it leaves out the negotiation aspect. To emphasize the importance of negotiation: several friends of mine told me their bosses said they could have started with nearly double their starting salaries if they had negotiated better, so this aspect makes a huge difference, at least in engineering. My understanding of the proposed legislation is that the higher (average) salaries, fought for and won by the men, will be given to the women for free (by companies who will be forced to make such information public and fear it will make them look bad). Not saying that's either good or bad, just interesting. Someone please correct me if I'm misunderstanding.

skummetmaelk 5y ago
> To emphasize the importance of negotiation: several friends of mine told me their bosses said they could have started with nearly double their starting salaries if they had negotiated better, so this aspect makes a huge difference, at least in engineering. Which clearly means that equal work doesn't pay equally. Surely your colleagues did not do half the work of those who negotiated a higher starting salary? In fact, mandating equal pay for equal work would take care of the negotiation aspect. The tricky part of course is how to measure work accurately.
- jimbob45 5y ago
  Unless you’re on an assembly line, there is no such thing as “equal work”. Several of my colleagues and I share the same title, yet the women with that title objectively produce less than the men and absolutely deserve less pay (at my company). Is that because of sexism? Or because we judge the individual, not the gender? This seems like a backdoor for Socialism where this backwards logic is used to justify paying everyone the same rate and so people who are massively productive end up subsidizing those who are useless.

MaxMoney 5y ago

kerneloftruth 5y ago

Not every employee in role X is as good as every other employee in role X. The better ones deserve higher pay, which creates an incentive for the others to up their game so that they, too, can earn more. Why try harder if it's run like romper room?

mhoad 5y ago
That is what bonus structures are for. Where you can pay extra in addition in order to incentivise better outcomes for your business.
- wpasc 5y ago
  What enshrines bonuses from being free from these disclosures and regulations? Any law about pay could be extended to bonuses and bonus disparity becomes pay disparity (unless I'm missing some enshrined, unchangeable, legal exemption/difference between bonuses and pay).
  - mhoad 5y ago
    It’s not a law about compensation it’s a law about salary as far as I know. So total compensation is salary plus bonuses in that scenario.
  - craigie 5y ago
    A lot of bonuses in the EU are paid based on numbers. EG. Bonus of 20% of price for every product sold. If I sell 100 product x and you sell 10 product x in the same day we are not doing equal work.

destitude 5y ago

How does this work for US companies working for remote workers who can be from the US or EU?

estaseuropano 5y ago

@dang, i would suggest to change the editorialized title. Its not a fait accompli, its a draft under discussion. E.g. Proposed EU directive on pay transparency andbetter access to justice for victims of pay discrimination.

Markoff 5y ago

When?

macilacilove 5y ago

Each EU country is perfectly capable of intruducing such laws if they feel like it. I don't see the benefit of the EU forcing this regulation on the whole bloc.

ThalesX 5y ago
I would love to see just how big the disparity is between countries.
gobip 5y ago
Just like they can introduce laws to help workers' social protection. Or safety measures. And yet they don't.

beardyw 5y ago

I worked in a consultancy in London in the 80s. Salaries of everyone were available and usually pinned on a notice board. It was very liberating.

nbzso 5y ago

I never started a conversation with a client or an employer, about work without clear idea how much I will get in return. Usually after taxes on a hourly rate measurement. If a company is not giving this information before the interview is not worth any attention at all. Period.

gzer0 5y ago

Is there anything in this mandate that prevents corporations from listing unreasonably large ranges? For the sake of this example, let's say FAANG is looking for a software engineer and the range for the job listing is: 68k - 600k. Would this be allowed? I ask because Denver, Colorado has identical mandated restrictions for job listings, and employers are skirting regulations by offering ridiculously broad ranges, putting everyone back at square one.

Gasp0de 5y ago
If I understand correctly they basically list what other people in the same role in the same company are paid. E.g. the company has 5 junior software developers and they are paid between 40k and 60k€ then that must be listed as the range if a new junior software developer is recruited.
cbg0 5y ago
Candidates will be more attracted towards positions that list accurate ranges. Also, for this mandate there's this gem: "Employees would have a right to ask their employer for sex-disaggregated information on the average pay of other workers doing the same work or work of equal value."
advisedwang 5y ago
I'm very interested in this too. OTOH it can't be worse than no info at all!
realusername 5y ago
The lower range still gives some information and will probably be used as an indication of what the company is at least willing to pay. If they put it way lower than their actual budget, it will scare away the candidates they are targeting.
d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
Also, won't companies just make narrow job titles sometimes only held by one person?

fleddr 5y ago

In this proposal, I dislike the very heavy and singular emphasis on gender. In my country, the Netherlands, when accounting for hours worked and the field people work in, the gap is about 5%. Some theorize part of this remaining small gap is men more aggressively negotiating, but I'm unsure. In any case it's pretty much a solved problem. Even more if you consider the trend. girls/women dominate in higher education and the breadwinner model is soon to be flipped. Add to that the fact that in some fields, women are now favored to balance the headcount in terms of diversity. Sometimes in extreme ways even. The university of Eindhoven has stopped considering men altogether in their hiring of professors. Imagine being an absolute guru in your field, fully qualified and wanting to passionately teach at this very high level. But you can't...because you have a penis. None of this is to say that no work remains in this area, but I openly wonder if legislation is proportional to the issue at hand, if there's even an issue in the first place. The legislation seems distrustful of businesses, assuming there's some secret plot against women progressing. I frankly find this type of regulation insulting and degrading to women and minorities. It creates this image that society is strongly working against you at every level, which is vastly overstating things. It also constantly signals to you that you're a helpless creature with no agency, you require special help with every interaction in society, as you can definitely not make it on your own. It must feel terrible to constantly be reminded of the fact that just your gender defines you. You're not a talented female programmer that is creative and a great communicator. No, you're a woman. A special case. It must feel even worse to constantly have to wonder where you've been "helped" in your career and if you're just a diversity token. Did you get that raise based on performance or because it looks good on the Excel sheet sent to the EU? We're even at risk of making nuclear objects out of women. Businesses and male colleagues being scared of them. For example, a recent study showed that female founders do not get useful critical feedback from VCs whilst male founders get harsh but useful feedback. I guess the VCs are scared. Is this what we want in the work place, male-female interactions not based on good intent but based on fear and mistrust? Imagine being a woman and having a bad week. At the end of the week your male manager says: "best week ever, proud of you". Would you at all feel taken serious?

fulafel 5y ago

Heavily editorialized title - for "EU to..." to be accurate it would have to be much further along the legislative process. This is at a draft report stage, not even voted on in committee yet.

nmca 5y ago

Many posts here talk about value-to-employer, but I have only ever seen wages driven by best-alternative-to-negotiated-agreement [0]. I find the discrepancy odd. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/best-alternative-to-a-negotiated-agreement-batna.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/best-alternative-to-a-n...

sfg 5y ago

Where does contracting fit into all of this? If you leave the formal structure of employment and don't fit into the set job titles of a company (or within, but as a contractor and so a different pay band), then can you effectively work around this? If so, then will those currently getting paid more move into contracting? They'd probably end up with more pay (even than they get now) if they did, so will we see a decrease in the statistical pay gap within categories based on formal job titles, but an increase in the real world pay gap between those that are actually earning more and less under the current system? So, it looks better on paper, but - if you care about the difference in pay - it gets worse in reality. Do we see this kind of thing already in the public sector in any countries? They often have public pay bands, but, as I understand things[1], in many places contractors, consultants, and such like can make better money by working outside of this system. So, transparent and formally equal, but actually less equal. I wonder, if we'll one day read about this in the economist. How there is a growing real pay gap, and how it differs from the formal pay gap. How legislators are trying to respond, but businesses and contractors are fighting back. [1] based mostly on anecdote and hearsay, rather than real knowledge, so please correct me! Edited for styling.

tobylane 5y ago
It doesn’t fit in. This is employee protections.
imiric 5y ago
For contractors the rate is already negotiated up front IME. Either the recruiter will mention the offered rate along with the role details, or you as a contractor will mention what your rate is.

Katzmann1983 5y ago

Money quote: "... more than two-thirds of them have said they are in favour of the publication of average wages by job type and gender at their company (64 %)." Since when are 64% more than two-thirs?

dang 5y ago

Discussed yesterday: Pay Transparency: European Commission proposes measures - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30429182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30429182 - Feb 2022 (44 comments) IIRC, this is a proposal. If so, then the submitted title is inaccurate. Please don't replace titles with misleading ones—that's the opposite of what the guidelines call for: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."