26 ms·

Companies to publish salary ranges in job adverts under new EU rules

277 points by fergie 4y ago

fergie 4y ago
https://archive.is/zb0Je https://archive.is/zb0Je
bdw5204 4y ago
From the article, it isn't clear whether a pay range of minimum wage to 1 million euros would be in compliance with this new rule. This is an actual tactic that many US employers have used to follow the letter but not the spirit of salary transparency laws.
- madeofpalk 4y ago
  You don't even need to be that hostile for this to be... difficult. I've seen salary bands for a specific role + level to be pretty wide - like 90k-150k. And then there's where you might be willing to accept mid level to principal dev - should you just publish a range where the upper is multiples of the lower? What's that really helping? I'm all for more transparency, especially when it helps to equal out the power inbalance in employer to employee, but these attempts seem rough.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    From the article: > They will not have to publish the precise salary due to fears that this could be commercially sensitive. If you're going to preserve the commercially sensitive nature of pay at a given firm, the tolerances that you must accept will be several multiples higher than the cited 13 percent difference in pay between men and women.
    - stefan_ 4y ago
      .. why on earth would we preserve that? Should supermarkets not show prices?
      - WheatMillington 4y ago
        Supermarkets should not have to disclose their COST prices, because these are non public negotiations, not a public offer to buy/sell. That so many people wilfully choose not to understand this distinction frustrates useful conversation.
        andyferris 4y ago
        I agree it's orthogonal to the original discussion, but I am interested in the hyptothesis that we'd be all better off if e.g. we could see the cost prices at supermarkets (and perhaps all their other relevant costs). E.g. is society better or worse off with less secrecy?
        paxys 4y ago
        No the equivalent scenario would be a grocery store (or online store, hotel, airline etc.) not publicly advertising any prices at all. If you want something you have to take it to the cashier, and they will give you a personalized price based on whatever factors they choose. Should that be legal? Maybe, maybe not. But there are plenty of laws out there that mandate that companies make pricing more transparent, because that is good for the end consumer.
        sokoloff 4y ago
        Is the analog for hiring a software engineer closer to buying: 1. An economy round trip on Airline A, with max 2 checked bags, leaving from JFK at datetime D1 to SFO, returning at D2. 2. A round trip on a plane starting in New York in month M, all other details unknown. Employees are different; how well matched they are for a given job is not knowable in advance of a first conversation, so for jobs were a range of value creation is possible, the range of possible agreement is wide and is certainly not a point. I have two SWEs where one creates twice as much value as the other. If you hired both of them into your firm, which one created 2x as much value could easily switch.
      - layer8 4y ago
        If job applicants were as standardized as supermarket products, that would seem reasonable.
- gotoeleven 4y ago
  I think the main problem is that these laws often fail to explicitly outlaw unintended consequences.
  - zeroonetwothree 4y ago
    Just like all laws?
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  I have also seen them spelled out in massive walls of text. Petty as fuck. Carefully scan the disclaimer section at the bottom for: > Colorado, New York City, California, and Washington Candidates Only. The salary range for this position is seventy thousand dollars to one hundred forty-seven thousand five hundred dollars. https://www.myrocketcareer.com/job-detail-page/16777898/software-engineer-remote/ https://www.myrocketcareer.com/job-detail-page/16777898/soft...
  - polski-g 4y ago
    That sounds like an acceptable range for a job posting.
- jltsiren 4y ago
  It's not clear, because the details don't exist yet. There is only a directive that requires the member states change their national laws within a few years. There will likely be at least 27 different interpretations of the directive, which will all evolve in response to the specific circumstances in each member state. Many countries also have informal mechanisms of enforcement. For example, businesses may have learned that it's often better to comply with the spirit of the law voluntarily. That way the final regulations will be more flexible and reasonable than by forcing the government to spell out the details explicitly. Or there may be strong unions, in which case many issues may be effectively decided in discussions between unions, businesses, and the government. If businesses burn too much political capital on a minor issue, they will have less influence on bigger issues.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  > it isn't clear whether a pay range of minimum wage to 1 million euros would be in compliance with this new rule. I would literally pay to see someone look a judge in the eye and tell them that that counted.
- _v7gu 4y ago
  EU is perfectly ok with issuing fines to smartasses who abide by the word of law but violate the spirit of it. Like the whole iPhone USB debacle and how Apple got warned again and again when they announced they were trying to go around the requirements in "smart" ways
- adrianN 4y ago
  If you want to hire only desperate people that might be a good strategy.
userbinator 4y ago
Ranges like $100000-$10000000?
- carabiner 4y ago
  https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/267459043 https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/267459043
  - justinclift 4y ago
    Heh: "The overall market range for roles in this area of Netflix is typically $90,000 - $900,000"
    - LoganDark 4y ago
      That's so terrible. The "overall market" range for "roles in this area" are "typically" anywhere within an entire order of magnitude. I haven't seen anything vaguer in my entire time on this earth.
      - dalyons 4y ago
        Well yes that’s the point. They’re clearly giving the middle finger to the requirement here
        jonas21 4y ago
        How so? My understanding is that Netflix offers a wide range of compensation based on individual performance. If they didn't disclose this, they'd be violating the law.
        justinclift 4y ago
        If they're looking for someone to fill this "$900k" position, they're clearly not going to hire someone they value as "$90k". And vice versa.
NKosmatos 4y ago
It’s in the right direction, but it will be implemented in 3 years and for companies with more than 100 employees, without specifying limits or edge cases.
- kwhitefoot 4y ago
  A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
motohagiography 4y ago
The two reasons I disagree with publishing salaries and "ranges" are that a) the implicit collusion creates mean reversion that disadvantages talent, who can afford to leave and go where they are valued and b) the values behind it presume that a job is something paternalistic granted by a manager in return for supplication, and not due consideration for value offered. Together these create a race to the bottom in office culture, where people optimize to compete not on competence and value, but on debasing themselves and attrition with others. Sure, if you are doing government work, (which is basically a sinecure anyway) this is fine, but any country that implements it will only ever be a kind of outsourced piecework shop, like a maquilladora or "friendshoring," where the real talent who manages the work and handles the money will be in places with rational incentives.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  I guess I like seeing the range as an applicant, but I do strongly agree with you in terms of paying people based off what they can command as individuals. Does a large range absolve your concerns?
  - lucumo 4y ago
    Not entirely the same situation, but when companies have full salary transparency (i.e. the salaries of all are known to all), then there will be fewer outliers. So, there are fewer "underpaid" people, but also fewer "overpaid" people. I put those terms in scare-quotes because it's unknown whether or not those differences were deserved or not. I did have a source for that, but it was in a podcast and I can't remember which. (1) The assumed mechanism made sense to me though: companies/managers would need to be able to justify salaries to anyone, which is much harder for outliers than for an average salary. It could be detrimental to company peace to hire somebody who earns 50% over everybody else, even if they are worth it. It changed my mind a bit on whether I like transparency. I used to like it unconditionally, but now I'm not so sure. At least in an opaque world, there's skills you can learn to become an outlier. With transparency the average could hinder your salary growth even more than it already does. (1) One of the weird things about listening to podcasts is I sometimes remember my physical location when hearing something better than the actual source of the information. That's also what happened here. I remember the traffic light I was stopped at, but not the podcast.
photochemsyn 4y ago
It would make more sense to publish lowest paid, highest paid, median and average salaries across the entire structure of the company. Plus data about other compensation in the form of bonuses, stock options, etc.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- acjacobson 4y ago
  Or make all compensation public information for everyone. I believe in Norway you can see anyone's tax return, which isn't exactly the same because it aggregates all earnings from all sources into one, but it doesn't appear, as far as I can tell, to have had many ill effects.
Mandatum 4y ago
Every salary range I've ever seen has been negotiable unless it's for government or tertiary roles. I don't understand how this helps except for quickly assessing who the top players are in the market, which you'll already know.
- progfix 4y ago
  In Austria companies are already mandated to post salaries for job descriptions. Some companies are very vague about it (here is the mininum, based on your experience you can negotiate,...), some are very clear about it. For me it helped filtering out companies and saved me a lot of time.
paxys 4y ago
I'm all for salary transparency, but I also miss the days when every tech company would have a single "Software Engineer" job posting on their board, and if you liked their vibe you'd apply for it. If they liked you in return, you were in. Everything else (your job title, seniority, salary, stock, what team and product you were actually going to work on, whether they had open headcount or not) were all just minor details that could be figured out later. And this wasn't just some tiny startup thing – companies like Google and Facebook were proud of this hiring process. All of the laws and expectations around hiring today have made this model impossible to maintain. What exactly does this position entail? How much will the candidate get paid? What team is it for? How many open positions does the company have in total right now? What is the average salary for all of them? You have to answer all of this and more before you can even think of hiring someone new. The old response of "we just hire as many smart people as we can find and pay them what we think they are worth" doesn't cut it anymore.
- t-writescode 4y ago
  The unfortunate reality is that it's really difficult for the employees themselves to make sure that everyone is being paid equitably in a situation like that. At least with (reasonably sized) salary ranges, people will have a general feel of where they are - and then it's also easier to do other analysis, e.g. "does the company, for some reason, only ever promote men?"
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  That model works for people with super high mobility: if you can afford to take a job, put efforts I to it for a few months, see if it pans out, and get out depending on how it goes, it's a good model. If you have a family and a mortgage and need a pretty good idea of what they're offering because you can't afford to take stab a three or four jobs randomly and leave them if it doesn't work out. Basically I see your model as perfect for newly graduates and freelancers, and pretty tough for everyone else. In a way, these kind of openings still exist, they're basically consulting roles or internships.
- mejutoco 4y ago
  While going through the process they can offer you one of the other jobs if you are a better fit for it.
oblio 4y ago
It's incredible how many people here are against transparency and a better labor market providing more information to the supplier side. Lord knows companies have probably 80% of the leverage in the job market. Tech people are doomed not by AIs, but by lack of solidarity, raw greed and lack of long term vision.
- anhner 4y ago
  I don't even understand how they would be against something that benefits them personally. I wonder if it's the mentality that "one day" they would become the IT moguls that own one of these companies, and wouldn't want this to disadvantage them?
  - vkou 4y ago
    They probably think that they've gotten one over everyone, and are super-skilled negotiators that are earning 40% more than their peers for the same work. Reality is probably quite different from that imagination.
  - atoav 4y ago
    Narcissism. [polemic rant incoming] They believe they are exceptional and deserve even higher pay than the ones listed, that the leopards-eating-peoples-faces-party won't eat their faces if they vote for it, that they are just temporarily embarrassed billionaires in a bit of a ruffle and golden times are just around the corner, they believe that they are better off if their surroundings are worse off, that the invisible hand of the market will fix everything except when it is them that suffer within the market, that is when the government needs to step in. The idea is vampirism, the polar opposite of Karma. Take as much as you can, kick down when you gained an slight angle on others, always priorize winning over any set of consistent principles, have a flexible relationship with the truth and underline aspects of it in inconsistent ways, as your goal is not to be truthful, but to win over others. Everything is a zero-sum-game, others having it good means they took something from you.
    - HEmanZ 4y ago
toldyouso2022 4y ago
The whole women perspective is ridicolous. I subscribe to the pov that there is no pay gap between sexes sprouting from hateful discrimination. But this will be great for Italy because a huge problem of our labor market is that salary is considered something dirty. This law may create a better culture. I hope so.
- froh 4y ago
  > no pay gap between sexes sprouting from hateful discrimination. possibly the pay gap has other reasons in many companies, yes. and yes it's real.
  - DagsEoress 4y ago
    Sorry, no it's not. Wage gap is a political tool, nothing else.
    - derlvative 4y ago
      Very convincing argument
    - class3shock 4y ago
      https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/03/01/the-enduring-grip-of-the-gender-pay-gap/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/03/01/the-end...
- namaria 4y ago
  > But this will be great for Italy because a huge problem of our labor market is that salary is considered something dirty Truly. Employees being termed "dependents" of the company is a big tell on Italy's work culture. I can also vouch for the toxicity of the Brazilian labor market. Every middling manager carries on like a petty feudal lord...
  - solarkraft 4y ago
    > Employees being termed "dependents" of the company is a big tell on Italy's work culture In german there's a funny situation as well: The employer is called the "work provider", while the employee is the "work receiver". Thank you, company, for providing me with work.
l3x4ur1n 4y ago
We have this in Slovakia and it's the best. You know what to expect.
kalnins 4y ago
There is an interesting side effect here. Salaries throughout EU vary a lot. This will give people chance to better understand the salary differences between countries.
- elric 4y ago
  I doubt it. It'll be apples and oranges. Can't even compare salaries between companies in many countries because a salary isn't expressed as a single amount. It's a combination of some gross periodic amount, a random collection of benefits which differs from employer to employer, and even "the same" benefits can have radically different values (e.g. health insurance from provider A instead of provider B). There's no way for candidates to derive the real value from such a complex offer, let alone compare it to other offers. I imagine employers would like to keep it that way. When comparing across countries, you'll also have to factor in how things are taxed in said countries and what you get in return for those taxes.
  - adrianN 4y ago
    "Health insurance" is not a benefit in any EU country that I know of. Are there any EU countries where health insurance is as messed up as in the US?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - moju 4y ago
      If is offered in a lot of tech companies in Ireland, and at least some in the UK. It isn't needed in the same way, but it makes a lot of things easier. Get seen faster, get money back from visits, etc.
    - blakblakarak 4y ago
      In France you get 'top up' insurance called a mutuelle (the state pays the first 70% - 80% of most healthcare costs - chronic conditions are paied 100% by the state). A basic mutuelle is obligatory at all jobs, but many will provide a decent one (that includes glasses, advanced dental work, hearing aids etc) as a benefit.
compmanager1234 4y ago
Having worked at just-below-FAANG companies with a surely above average oversight on how compensation strategy works, let me summarize my experience: We, as a company already know how much our competitors pay for a given role as everyone in the industry is buying and selling statistical data on their compensation structure through 3rd party agencies. Therefore, we can and do intentionally target, which salary band our positions should fall to in the broader market. You have absolutely no way to negotiate your base salary above the band which was already known when we created the position. There could still be substantial differences, as even mid level roles have 30%+ difference in band limits. You can however, have the position to be upgraded or downgraded if certain circumstances met, but that's a new position with new salary ranges. These regulations likely increase employee leverage, but to which extent, hard to tell. You should care about your total compensation anyway and neither cash bonus, nor equity is covered in the disclosure, although especially for senior positions, those are very substantial part of your compensation.
- happymellon 4y ago
  I've had folks hard quit at previous companies as soon as they find out how big a difference between their pay and new hires. We are talking about £20k+. This would be extremely useful during annual reviews and other events during your tenure at an organisation not just at hiring time.
- looperhacks 4y ago
  > You should care about your total compensation anyway and neither cash bonus, nor equity is covered in the disclosure, although especially for senior positions, those are very substantial part of your compensation. Most people outside of the tech-sector will never see any bonus, equity, etc. besides their normal salary.
  - reisse 4y ago
    > Most people outside of the tech-sector will never see any bonus, equity, etc. besides their normal salary. From my POV, even in tech sector a lot of people are overestimating equity values. With a median tenure in FAANG likely below two years, base salary becomes much more important than people think about it.
Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
There's lot of poorly paying (and very mediocre) companies who must be a tad worried about that development. I've been very under-compensated by a few employers, but had to put up with all sorts of smoke and mirrors in their review meetings about them "matching market rates" for compensation. This will cut through that nonsense, and get their compensation "spin" to fact some proveable hard facts.
switch007 4y ago
Recruiters seem to be already ahead of the curve with “salary up to <insane figure>”. Absolutely useless information that they give
- patrickk 4y ago
  It's mentioned in the article that a salary range should be published. So a minimum and maximum amount should be listed in a job posting to avoid this kind of nonsense.
  - richardw 4y ago
    Nonsense can still occur: "salary range $10000 to $5000000".
    - patrickk 4y ago
      As noted elsewhere in the discussion, the EU tends to come down heavily on companies who violate the spirit of the law like that. Not to say it won't happen, but high profile examples will be clamped down on like Apple with the USB-C trickery.
      - yourusername 4y ago
        Still in the real world it is not uncommon for there to be a 50% spread between employees in the same role. I've worked for companies where the official policy is a 50% higher pay for top performers vs worst performers and i'm sure there are companies with a even bigger spread.
        msm_ 4y ago
        In case of small companies it's not unusual to have just a "software engineer" job posting, and consider everyone from mid to principal engineer (with salary dependent on their skill level). I wonder how job postings would work in this case.
    - 4y ago
theonlybutlet 4y ago
The only reason someone would have issue with this law, is that they are averse to change.
x-complexity 4y ago
Self-publishing salary ranges without intense oversight will likely not properly work unless the following are fully utilized & followed to the letter: - The company in question can only use salaries of existing roles, with string Levenshtein distance of 3 [0]. If it's a new role within the company, they're mandated to use the government's average salary. - The company can only use the term "Expect {low_bound} - {high_bound}", where (low_bound := min(current_salaries_for_role || government_average) * 0.85), and (high_bound := max(current_salaries_for_role || government_average) * 1.15) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenshtein_distance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenshtein_distance Any given leeway would inevitably be used by corporations to misadvertise their job postings, so it must be paramount that the possible space & terms available be made extremely strict in anticipation of such abuse.
- samtho 4y ago
  This is still better than nothing. If a company thinks a staff software engineer is worth a maximum of $95k, for example, I would be able to spot this before wasting anyone’s time with an application and potentially an interview.
- troad 4y ago
  Yes god forbid employers are allowed to - checks notes - set wages. The Ministry of Truth knows better than they do what they can afford to pay for a given role! I applaud efforts to make companies publish salary ranges. It corrects an information disparity that leads to inefficiency. But what you propose (basically government-set salaries) is economically illiterate and would do nothing but harm employers and employees alike (not to mention the broader economy).
  - x-complexity 4y ago
    > Yes god forbid employers are allowed to - checks notes - set wages. The Ministry of Truth knows better than they do what they can afford to pay for a given role! > I applaud efforts to make companies publish salary ranges. It corrects an information disparity that leads to inefficiency. But what you propose (basically government-set salaries) is economically illiterate and would do nothing but harm employers and employees alike (not to mention the broader economy). As noted in the provided definitions, the company can set their own ranges if they have existing staff that are currently performing the defined role. As noted here: > (low_bound := min(current_salaries_for_role || government_average) * 0.85), and > (high_bound := max(current_salaries_for_role || government_average) * 1.15) if len(current_salaries_for_role) > 0, then the company can use it's own salaries for its own ranges.
fergie 4y ago
If you advertise a position with a tight, high salary band, then you are going to get the best candidates (all other things being equal). The proposed law gives organisations that offer good pay and conditions a stronger competitive advantage in the labour market than they currently have. This law basically enshrines what has being going on at the top SV companies for years: make it known that you offer high wages, and then tolerate the sharing of wage information by employees (protected under Californian law).
snvzz 4y ago
I can already see the malicious compliance. Legal minimum to the sky.
flappyeagle 4y ago
What do we think the second order effects of this will be? I think the main effect won't be to equalize mens and womens salaries (though it may help) but it will probably lead to more brain drain and concentration of talent in higher-paying organizations and richer geographies. My past company had a playbook of simply offering 20-30% above whatever the going rate was in EU countries for remote work. For any offers we put out we had something like a 95% close rate (the big exception was France)
eru 4y ago
This sounds like lots of extra bureaucracy for people who want to offer jobs to other people..
self_awareness 4y ago
How that does change anything? There are already sites that require salary disclosure on submitting an offer: nofluffjobs.com. It doesn't change anything. Companies are posting inflated salary ranges there, higher than normal, higher than anyone will ever get after the real interview, just to make their offer more interesting to look at. If there's a gap between what men and women get (and I really doubt this gap exists), then this doesn't change absolutely anything; a position will have a salary RANGE bound to it, and the employer will be freely able to give lower salary to women than to men anyway.
hankchinaski 4y ago
a battle i started 5 years ago when i launched https://golang.cafe https://golang.cafe hopefully it will become the norm and not the exception, salary ranges should be public
DeathArrow 4y ago
Companies will just align to offer the same base salary and will differentiate through bonuses.

277 points by fergie 4y ago

https://archive.is/zb0Je https://archive.is/zb0Je

From the article, it isn't clear whether a pay range of minimum wage to 1 million euros would be in compliance with this new rule. This is an actual tactic that many US employers have used to follow the letter but not the spirit of salary transparency laws.

madeofpalk 4y ago
You don't even need to be that hostile for this to be... difficult. I've seen salary bands for a specific role + level to be pretty wide - like 90k-150k. And then there's where you might be willing to accept mid level to principal dev - should you just publish a range where the upper is multiples of the lower? What's that really helping? I'm all for more transparency, especially when it helps to equal out the power inbalance in employer to employee, but these attempts seem rough.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  From the article: > They will not have to publish the precise salary due to fears that this could be commercially sensitive. If you're going to preserve the commercially sensitive nature of pay at a given firm, the tolerances that you must accept will be several multiples higher than the cited 13 percent difference in pay between men and women.
  - stefan_ 4y ago
    .. why on earth would we preserve that? Should supermarkets not show prices?
    - WheatMillington 4y ago
      Supermarkets should not have to disclose their COST prices, because these are non public negotiations, not a public offer to buy/sell. That so many people wilfully choose not to understand this distinction frustrates useful conversation.
      - andyferris 4y ago
        I agree it's orthogonal to the original discussion, but I am interested in the hyptothesis that we'd be all better off if e.g. we could see the cost prices at supermarkets (and perhaps all their other relevant costs). E.g. is society better or worse off with less secrecy?
      - paxys 4y ago
        No the equivalent scenario would be a grocery store (or online store, hotel, airline etc.) not publicly advertising any prices at all. If you want something you have to take it to the cashier, and they will give you a personalized price based on whatever factors they choose. Should that be legal? Maybe, maybe not. But there are plenty of laws out there that mandate that companies make pricing more transparent, because that is good for the end consumer.
        sokoloff 4y ago
        Is the analog for hiring a software engineer closer to buying: 1. An economy round trip on Airline A, with max 2 checked bags, leaving from JFK at datetime D1 to SFO, returning at D2. 2. A round trip on a plane starting in New York in month M, all other details unknown. Employees are different; how well matched they are for a given job is not knowable in advance of a first conversation, so for jobs were a range of value creation is possible, the range of possible agreement is wide and is certainly not a point. I have two SWEs where one creates twice as much value as the other. If you hired both of them into your firm, which one created 2x as much value could easily switch.
    - layer8 4y ago
      If job applicants were as standardized as supermarket products, that would seem reasonable.
gotoeleven 4y ago
I think the main problem is that these laws often fail to explicitly outlaw unintended consequences.
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago
  Just like all laws?
nonethewiser 4y ago
I have also seen them spelled out in massive walls of text. Petty as fuck. Carefully scan the disclaimer section at the bottom for: > Colorado, New York City, California, and Washington Candidates Only. The salary range for this position is seventy thousand dollars to one hundred forty-seven thousand five hundred dollars. https://www.myrocketcareer.com/job-detail-page/16777898/software-engineer-remote/ https://www.myrocketcareer.com/job-detail-page/16777898/soft...
- polski-g 4y ago
  That sounds like an acceptable range for a job posting.
jltsiren 4y ago
It's not clear, because the details don't exist yet. There is only a directive that requires the member states change their national laws within a few years. There will likely be at least 27 different interpretations of the directive, which will all evolve in response to the specific circumstances in each member state. Many countries also have informal mechanisms of enforcement. For example, businesses may have learned that it's often better to comply with the spirit of the law voluntarily. That way the final regulations will be more flexible and reasonable than by forcing the government to spell out the details explicitly. Or there may be strong unions, in which case many issues may be effectively decided in discussions between unions, businesses, and the government. If businesses burn too much political capital on a minor issue, they will have less influence on bigger issues.
yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
> it isn't clear whether a pay range of minimum wage to 1 million euros would be in compliance with this new rule. I would literally pay to see someone look a judge in the eye and tell them that that counted.
_v7gu 4y ago
EU is perfectly ok with issuing fines to smartasses who abide by the word of law but violate the spirit of it. Like the whole iPhone USB debacle and how Apple got warned again and again when they announced they were trying to go around the requirements in "smart" ways
adrianN 4y ago
If you want to hire only desperate people that might be a good strategy.

userbinator 4y ago

Ranges like $100000-$10000000?

carabiner 4y ago
https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/267459043 https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/267459043
- justinclift 4y ago
  Heh: "The overall market range for roles in this area of Netflix is typically $90,000 - $900,000"
  - LoganDark 4y ago
    That's so terrible. The "overall market" range for "roles in this area" are "typically" anywhere within an entire order of magnitude. I haven't seen anything vaguer in my entire time on this earth.
    - dalyons 4y ago
      Well yes that’s the point. They’re clearly giving the middle finger to the requirement here
      - jonas21 4y ago
        How so? My understanding is that Netflix offers a wide range of compensation based on individual performance. If they didn't disclose this, they'd be violating the law.
        justinclift 4y ago
        If they're looking for someone to fill this "$900k" position, they're clearly not going to hire someone they value as "$90k". And vice versa.

NKosmatos 4y ago

It’s in the right direction, but it will be implemented in 3 years and for companies with more than 100 employees, without specifying limits or edge cases.

kwhitefoot 4y ago
A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

motohagiography 4y ago

The two reasons I disagree with publishing salaries and "ranges" are that a) the implicit collusion creates mean reversion that disadvantages talent, who can afford to leave and go where they are valued and b) the values behind it presume that a job is something paternalistic granted by a manager in return for supplication, and not due consideration for value offered. Together these create a race to the bottom in office culture, where people optimize to compete not on competence and value, but on debasing themselves and attrition with others. Sure, if you are doing government work, (which is basically a sinecure anyway) this is fine, but any country that implements it will only ever be a kind of outsourced piecework shop, like a maquilladora or "friendshoring," where the real talent who manages the work and handles the money will be in places with rational incentives.

nonethewiser 4y ago
I guess I like seeing the range as an applicant, but I do strongly agree with you in terms of paying people based off what they can command as individuals. Does a large range absolve your concerns?
- lucumo 4y ago
  Not entirely the same situation, but when companies have full salary transparency (i.e. the salaries of all are known to all), then there will be fewer outliers. So, there are fewer "underpaid" people, but also fewer "overpaid" people. I put those terms in scare-quotes because it's unknown whether or not those differences were deserved or not. I did have a source for that, but it was in a podcast and I can't remember which. (1) The assumed mechanism made sense to me though: companies/managers would need to be able to justify salaries to anyone, which is much harder for outliers than for an average salary. It could be detrimental to company peace to hire somebody who earns 50% over everybody else, even if they are worth it. It changed my mind a bit on whether I like transparency. I used to like it unconditionally, but now I'm not so sure. At least in an opaque world, there's skills you can learn to become an outlier. With transparency the average could hinder your salary growth even more than it already does. (1) One of the weird things about listening to podcasts is I sometimes remember my physical location when hearing something better than the actual source of the information. That's also what happened here. I remember the traffic light I was stopped at, but not the podcast.

photochemsyn 4y ago

It would make more sense to publish lowest paid, highest paid, median and average salaries across the entire structure of the company. Plus data about other compensation in the form of bonuses, stock options, etc.

deleted 4y ago
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acjacobson 4y ago
Or make all compensation public information for everyone. I believe in Norway you can see anyone's tax return, which isn't exactly the same because it aggregates all earnings from all sources into one, but it doesn't appear, as far as I can tell, to have had many ill effects.

Mandatum 4y ago

Every salary range I've ever seen has been negotiable unless it's for government or tertiary roles. I don't understand how this helps except for quickly assessing who the top players are in the market, which you'll already know.

progfix 4y ago
In Austria companies are already mandated to post salaries for job descriptions. Some companies are very vague about it (here is the mininum, based on your experience you can negotiate,...), some are very clear about it. For me it helped filtering out companies and saved me a lot of time.

paxys 4y ago

I'm all for salary transparency, but I also miss the days when every tech company would have a single "Software Engineer" job posting on their board, and if you liked their vibe you'd apply for it. If they liked you in return, you were in. Everything else (your job title, seniority, salary, stock, what team and product you were actually going to work on, whether they had open headcount or not) were all just minor details that could be figured out later. And this wasn't just some tiny startup thing – companies like Google and Facebook were proud of this hiring process. All of the laws and expectations around hiring today have made this model impossible to maintain. What exactly does this position entail? How much will the candidate get paid? What team is it for? How many open positions does the company have in total right now? What is the average salary for all of them? You have to answer all of this and more before you can even think of hiring someone new. The old response of "we just hire as many smart people as we can find and pay them what we think they are worth" doesn't cut it anymore.

t-writescode 4y ago
The unfortunate reality is that it's really difficult for the employees themselves to make sure that everyone is being paid equitably in a situation like that. At least with (reasonably sized) salary ranges, people will have a general feel of where they are - and then it's also easier to do other analysis, e.g. "does the company, for some reason, only ever promote men?"
makeitdouble 4y ago
That model works for people with super high mobility: if you can afford to take a job, put efforts I to it for a few months, see if it pans out, and get out depending on how it goes, it's a good model. If you have a family and a mortgage and need a pretty good idea of what they're offering because you can't afford to take stab a three or four jobs randomly and leave them if it doesn't work out. Basically I see your model as perfect for newly graduates and freelancers, and pretty tough for everyone else. In a way, these kind of openings still exist, they're basically consulting roles or internships.
mejutoco 4y ago
While going through the process they can offer you one of the other jobs if you are a better fit for it.

oblio 4y ago

It's incredible how many people here are against transparency and a better labor market providing more information to the supplier side. Lord knows companies have probably 80% of the leverage in the job market. Tech people are doomed not by AIs, but by lack of solidarity, raw greed and lack of long term vision.

anhner 4y ago
I don't even understand how they would be against something that benefits them personally. I wonder if it's the mentality that "one day" they would become the IT moguls that own one of these companies, and wouldn't want this to disadvantage them?
- vkou 4y ago
  They probably think that they've gotten one over everyone, and are super-skilled negotiators that are earning 40% more than their peers for the same work. Reality is probably quite different from that imagination.
- atoav 4y ago
  Narcissism. [polemic rant incoming] They believe they are exceptional and deserve even higher pay than the ones listed, that the leopards-eating-peoples-faces-party won't eat their faces if they vote for it, that they are just temporarily embarrassed billionaires in a bit of a ruffle and golden times are just around the corner, they believe that they are better off if their surroundings are worse off, that the invisible hand of the market will fix everything except when it is them that suffer within the market, that is when the government needs to step in. The idea is vampirism, the polar opposite of Karma. Take as much as you can, kick down when you gained an slight angle on others, always priorize winning over any set of consistent principles, have a flexible relationship with the truth and underline aspects of it in inconsistent ways, as your goal is not to be truthful, but to win over others. Everything is a zero-sum-game, others having it good means they took something from you.
  - HEmanZ 4y ago

toldyouso2022 4y ago

The whole women perspective is ridicolous. I subscribe to the pov that there is no pay gap between sexes sprouting from hateful discrimination. But this will be great for Italy because a huge problem of our labor market is that salary is considered something dirty. This law may create a better culture. I hope so.

froh 4y ago
> no pay gap between sexes sprouting from hateful discrimination. possibly the pay gap has other reasons in many companies, yes. and yes it's real.
- DagsEoress 4y ago
  Sorry, no it's not. Wage gap is a political tool, nothing else.
  - derlvative 4y ago
    Very convincing argument
  - class3shock 4y ago
    https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/03/01/the-enduring-grip-of-the-gender-pay-gap/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/03/01/the-end...
namaria 4y ago
> But this will be great for Italy because a huge problem of our labor market is that salary is considered something dirty Truly. Employees being termed "dependents" of the company is a big tell on Italy's work culture. I can also vouch for the toxicity of the Brazilian labor market. Every middling manager carries on like a petty feudal lord...
- solarkraft 4y ago
  > Employees being termed "dependents" of the company is a big tell on Italy's work culture In german there's a funny situation as well: The employer is called the "work provider", while the employee is the "work receiver". Thank you, company, for providing me with work.

l3x4ur1n 4y ago

We have this in Slovakia and it's the best. You know what to expect.

kalnins 4y ago

There is an interesting side effect here. Salaries throughout EU vary a lot. This will give people chance to better understand the salary differences between countries.

elric 4y ago
I doubt it. It'll be apples and oranges. Can't even compare salaries between companies in many countries because a salary isn't expressed as a single amount. It's a combination of some gross periodic amount, a random collection of benefits which differs from employer to employer, and even "the same" benefits can have radically different values (e.g. health insurance from provider A instead of provider B). There's no way for candidates to derive the real value from such a complex offer, let alone compare it to other offers. I imagine employers would like to keep it that way. When comparing across countries, you'll also have to factor in how things are taxed in said countries and what you get in return for those taxes.
- adrianN 4y ago
  "Health insurance" is not a benefit in any EU country that I know of. Are there any EU countries where health insurance is as messed up as in the US?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - moju 4y ago
    If is offered in a lot of tech companies in Ireland, and at least some in the UK. It isn't needed in the same way, but it makes a lot of things easier. Get seen faster, get money back from visits, etc.
  - blakblakarak 4y ago
    In France you get 'top up' insurance called a mutuelle (the state pays the first 70% - 80% of most healthcare costs - chronic conditions are paied 100% by the state). A basic mutuelle is obligatory at all jobs, but many will provide a decent one (that includes glasses, advanced dental work, hearing aids etc) as a benefit.

compmanager1234 4y ago

Having worked at just-below-FAANG companies with a surely above average oversight on how compensation strategy works, let me summarize my experience: We, as a company already know how much our competitors pay for a given role as everyone in the industry is buying and selling statistical data on their compensation structure through 3rd party agencies. Therefore, we can and do intentionally target, which salary band our positions should fall to in the broader market. You have absolutely no way to negotiate your base salary above the band which was already known when we created the position. There could still be substantial differences, as even mid level roles have 30%+ difference in band limits. You can however, have the position to be upgraded or downgraded if certain circumstances met, but that's a new position with new salary ranges. These regulations likely increase employee leverage, but to which extent, hard to tell. You should care about your total compensation anyway and neither cash bonus, nor equity is covered in the disclosure, although especially for senior positions, those are very substantial part of your compensation.

happymellon 4y ago
I've had folks hard quit at previous companies as soon as they find out how big a difference between their pay and new hires. We are talking about £20k+. This would be extremely useful during annual reviews and other events during your tenure at an organisation not just at hiring time.
looperhacks 4y ago
> You should care about your total compensation anyway and neither cash bonus, nor equity is covered in the disclosure, although especially for senior positions, those are very substantial part of your compensation. Most people outside of the tech-sector will never see any bonus, equity, etc. besides their normal salary.
- reisse 4y ago
  > Most people outside of the tech-sector will never see any bonus, equity, etc. besides their normal salary. From my POV, even in tech sector a lot of people are overestimating equity values. With a median tenure in FAANG likely below two years, base salary becomes much more important than people think about it.

Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago

There's lot of poorly paying (and very mediocre) companies who must be a tad worried about that development. I've been very under-compensated by a few employers, but had to put up with all sorts of smoke and mirrors in their review meetings about them "matching market rates" for compensation. This will cut through that nonsense, and get their compensation "spin" to fact some proveable hard facts.

switch007 4y ago

Recruiters seem to be already ahead of the curve with “salary up to <insane figure>”. Absolutely useless information that they give

patrickk 4y ago
It's mentioned in the article that a salary range should be published. So a minimum and maximum amount should be listed in a job posting to avoid this kind of nonsense.
- richardw 4y ago
  Nonsense can still occur: "salary range $10000 to $5000000".
  - patrickk 4y ago
    As noted elsewhere in the discussion, the EU tends to come down heavily on companies who violate the spirit of the law like that. Not to say it won't happen, but high profile examples will be clamped down on like Apple with the USB-C trickery.
    - yourusername 4y ago
      Still in the real world it is not uncommon for there to be a 50% spread between employees in the same role. I've worked for companies where the official policy is a 50% higher pay for top performers vs worst performers and i'm sure there are companies with a even bigger spread.
      - msm_ 4y ago
        In case of small companies it's not unusual to have just a "software engineer" job posting, and consider everyone from mid to principal engineer (with salary dependent on their skill level). I wonder how job postings would work in this case.
  - 4y ago

theonlybutlet 4y ago

The only reason someone would have issue with this law, is that they are averse to change.

x-complexity 4y ago

Self-publishing salary ranges without intense oversight will likely not properly work unless the following are fully utilized & followed to the letter: - The company in question can only use salaries of existing roles, with string Levenshtein distance of 3 [0]. If it's a new role within the company, they're mandated to use the government's average salary. - The company can only use the term "Expect {low_bound} - {high_bound}", where (low_bound := min(current_salaries_for_role || government_average) * 0.85), and (high_bound := max(current_salaries_for_role || government_average) * 1.15) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenshtein_distance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenshtein_distance Any given leeway would inevitably be used by corporations to misadvertise their job postings, so it must be paramount that the possible space & terms available be made extremely strict in anticipation of such abuse.

samtho 4y ago
This is still better than nothing. If a company thinks a staff software engineer is worth a maximum of $95k, for example, I would be able to spot this before wasting anyone’s time with an application and potentially an interview.
troad 4y ago
Yes god forbid employers are allowed to - checks notes - set wages. The Ministry of Truth knows better than they do what they can afford to pay for a given role! I applaud efforts to make companies publish salary ranges. It corrects an information disparity that leads to inefficiency. But what you propose (basically government-set salaries) is economically illiterate and would do nothing but harm employers and employees alike (not to mention the broader economy).
- x-complexity 4y ago
  > Yes god forbid employers are allowed to - checks notes - set wages. The Ministry of Truth knows better than they do what they can afford to pay for a given role! > I applaud efforts to make companies publish salary ranges. It corrects an information disparity that leads to inefficiency. But what you propose (basically government-set salaries) is economically illiterate and would do nothing but harm employers and employees alike (not to mention the broader economy). As noted in the provided definitions, the company can set their own ranges if they have existing staff that are currently performing the defined role. As noted here: > (low_bound := min(current_salaries_for_role || government_average) * 0.85), and > (high_bound := max(current_salaries_for_role || government_average) * 1.15) if len(current_salaries_for_role) > 0, then the company can use it's own salaries for its own ranges.

fergie 4y ago

If you advertise a position with a tight, high salary band, then you are going to get the best candidates (all other things being equal). The proposed law gives organisations that offer good pay and conditions a stronger competitive advantage in the labour market than they currently have. This law basically enshrines what has being going on at the top SV companies for years: make it known that you offer high wages, and then tolerate the sharing of wage information by employees (protected under Californian law).

snvzz 4y ago

I can already see the malicious compliance. Legal minimum to the sky.

flappyeagle 4y ago

What do we think the second order effects of this will be? I think the main effect won't be to equalize mens and womens salaries (though it may help) but it will probably lead to more brain drain and concentration of talent in higher-paying organizations and richer geographies. My past company had a playbook of simply offering 20-30% above whatever the going rate was in EU countries for remote work. For any offers we put out we had something like a 95% close rate (the big exception was France)

eru 4y ago

This sounds like lots of extra bureaucracy for people who want to offer jobs to other people..

self_awareness 4y ago

How that does change anything? There are already sites that require salary disclosure on submitting an offer: nofluffjobs.com. It doesn't change anything. Companies are posting inflated salary ranges there, higher than normal, higher than anyone will ever get after the real interview, just to make their offer more interesting to look at. If there's a gap between what men and women get (and I really doubt this gap exists), then this doesn't change absolutely anything; a position will have a salary RANGE bound to it, and the employer will be freely able to give lower salary to women than to men anyway.

hankchinaski 4y ago

a battle i started 5 years ago when i launched https://golang.cafe https://golang.cafe hopefully it will become the norm and not the exception, salary ranges should be public

DeathArrow 4y ago

Companies will just align to offer the same base salary and will differentiate through bonuses.