7 ms·

Feels like this sounds good in principle but - some roles don’t really have a budget, salary will depend on applicant and can range a lot - forcing a range me

Feels like this sounds good in principle but - some roles don’t really have a budget, salary will depend on applicant and can range a lot - forcing a range means these ranges will skew lower so higher performing people will lose out and average salaries will go down

joshuanapoli 3y ago
If the employer really has a too-wide range, they can just post two job openings that split the range into high and low experience options.
nonethewiser 3y ago
> some roles don’t really have a budget, salary will depend on applicant and can range a lot Not a real problem. That can be expressed as a range. For example, 100k-infinity.
- l33t7332273 3y ago
  $100k+ isn’t very helpful if you make $180k and only want to apply for jobs paying $200k+. I could see ranges having some issues
  - jamilton 3y ago
    It's better than nothing.
  - deprecative 3y ago
    Employers will always try to get you to undervalue yourself so they can get away with paying you as little as possible. Taking tools away from them that they use to do this is only a good thing.
    - phpisthebest 3y ago
      While I 100% agree with wage transparency, just like I agree with price transparency for any other good... This idea that there is some evil conspiracy to screw people is crazy to me. Everyone wants to get the best price they can for anything, I am sure when you hire a HVAC person, or a plumber you are not looking to hire the most expensive person, you are looking to hire the best value... Why do people believe employment is something different than any other goods exchange, employers buy labor from the market no different you buy a computer monitor, or a plumber. I think everyone should have transparent pricing for everything, if Space X can post pricing to launch something into orbit, then dave the plumber can publish his rates, and Amce Corp can publish what they are paying employees... "Call for pricing" should be a thing of the past for products just like "We pay competitive wages" should be a thing of the past for job ads.
      - toomuchtodo 3y ago
        > This idea that there is some evil conspiracy to screw people is crazy to me. Bruh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... https://goodjobsfirst.org/conspiring-against-competition/ https://goodjobsfirst.org/conspiring-against-competition/ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/14/business/economy/wages-antitrust-law-us.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/14/business/economy/wages-an... https://archive.ph/2022.03.07-193856/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/07/business/economy/treasury-competition-report.html https://archive.ph/2022.03.07-193856/https://www.nytimes.com... https://www.justice.gov/atr/file/903511/download https://www.justice.gov/atr/file/903511/download
        phpisthebest 3y ago
        Bruh.... exceptions do not make a rule
        toomuchtodo 3y ago
        If $96 billions in fines over two decades and thousands of companies doesn’t demonstrate a pattern, I don’t know what to tell you. Perhaps we’re haggling over the conspiracy ruler. Refer to your quote I quoted, and the data provided. There is clearly a broad effort to suppress wages, even if everyone involved isn’t getting together at a Skull and Bones convention to do it.
    - BlackEngineer 3y ago
      I mean; that sounds like a personal problem. If you take responsibility for your life and are honest with yourself about the value you bring to the table, then what you’re saying is moot.
      - deprecative 3y ago
        I often forget how techbro-libertarian this site can be. Carry on.
  - nonethewiser 3y ago
    Thats from the candidates perspective. Its no less helpful than not publishing the range.
  - maxerickson 3y ago
    The supposed issue there would be missed matches no? If the range really is quite wide, the employer probably isn't really trying very hard to hire at the top end and someone at that price can compare it to their options well enough before spending time on it.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    A bottom limit is always helpful, for all applicants. For those who expect more and do not want to waste time, they can look elsewhere. For prospective labor sellers, such as high school and college students or career changers, the bottom limit (and its trend) can help them project cash flow if they were to pursue that type of work. And it results in a more efficient allocation of labor for the country as a whole. For example, it could more quickly signal to people that we need fewer paper pushers and more trades workers.
- noku 3y ago
  Or 0k-infinity, which is the current state!
  - nonethewiser 3y ago
    Sure, if that’s how the employer wants to do it. I wouldn’t say that’s the current state though.
- BlackEngineer 3y ago
  It’s not a real problem for people who’s skill set is commoditized. This is a real problem for high value employees. This all really feels like McDonalds employees forcing the rest of us to negotiate the way they have to.
seanoliver 3y ago
> - forcing a range means these ranges will skew lower so higher performing people will lose out and average salaries will go down I could easily see this having the opposite effect: Forcing a range causes employers (particularly those with less name recognition) to increase posted salaries in order to get people interested enough to apply. I don't see how posting lower salaries would do anything but discourage top applicants.
- marcus_holmes 3y ago
  I can see how companies paying their current staff a lower salary would be hesitant to post the new job at a higher salary range. There would be a strong temptation to post at a lower range, despite that not attracting the best new talent, to avoid the demands of pay raises from the existing staff.
  - NoraCodes 3y ago
    Sounds like a good thing. Those companies will either pay their workers what they're worth, or hurt for talent.
genocidicbunny 3y ago
> some roles don’t really have a budget, salary will depend on applicant and can range a lot Of course they all have a budget. You're not going to have a $1m range on pay for the same position that depends on the applicant, except for maybe a few exceptional cases.
- BlackEngineer 3y ago
  Could it be that your experience and skills are common and so you don’t really have experience with salary negotiation in this context. Like, everybody I know that advocates for this couldn’t imagine a world where the skills they’ve developed play a role in negotiation.
hotnfresh 3y ago
> - forcing a range means these ranges will skew lower so higher performing people will lose out and average salaries will go down Executive comp being disclosed appears, if anything, to have had the opposite effect.
barry-cotter 3y ago
That’s what the evidence shows, yeah. Pay transparency benefits employers at the cost of high performers because they can credibly commit to not paying more. > Equilibrium effects of pay transparency in a simple labor market > Public discourse on pay transparency has not focused on equilibrium effects: how greater transparency impacts hiring and bargaining. To study these effects, we combine a dynamic wage-bargaining model with data from online markets for low-skill, temporary jobs that differ in their level of transparency. Wages are more equal, but lower under transparency. Transparency increases hiring and employer profits, rising 27% in an online field experiment. A key intuition is high transparency commits employers to negotiating aggressively, because a highly paid worker's salary affects negotiations with other workers. We discuss implications for the gender wage gap and employers' endogenous transparency choices. https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3328526.3329645 https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3328526.3329645 > Equilibrium effects of pay transparency > The discourse around pay transparency has focused on partial equilibrium effects: how workers rectify pay inequities through informed renegotiation. We investigate how employers respond in equilibrium. We study a model of bargaining under two‐sided incomplete information. Our model predicts that transparency reduces the individual bargaining power of workers, leading to lower average wages. A key insight is that employers credibly refuse to pay high wages to any one worker to avoid costly renegotiations with others. When workers have low individual bargaining power, pay transparency has a muted effect. We test our model with an event‐study analysis of U.S. state‐level laws protecting the right of private sector workers to communicate salary information with their coworkers. Consistent with our theoretical predictions, transparency laws empirically lead wages to decline by approximately 2%, and wage declines are smallest in magnitude when workers have low individual bargaining power. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w28903/w28903.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w28903/w289...
plagiarist 3y ago
What is this industry where a few people are being paid so far beyond their peers that moving salaries to a market-decided fair range brings the average salary down?
- made_this_acct4 3y ago
  Engineering
jahewson 3y ago
The range is not forced and salaries of existing employees are not disclosed, so this effect does not hold. A talented individual is free to negotiate above the pay range and the range for a new role does not have to reflect the salaries of existing employees in that role.

joshuanapoli 3y ago

If the employer really has a too-wide range, they can just post two job openings that split the range into high and low experience options.

nonethewiser 3y ago

> some roles don’t really have a budget, salary will depend on applicant and can range a lot Not a real problem. That can be expressed as a range. For example, 100k-infinity.

l33t7332273 3y ago
$100k+ isn’t very helpful if you make $180k and only want to apply for jobs paying $200k+. I could see ranges having some issues
- jamilton 3y ago
  It's better than nothing.
- deprecative 3y ago
  Employers will always try to get you to undervalue yourself so they can get away with paying you as little as possible. Taking tools away from them that they use to do this is only a good thing.
  - phpisthebest 3y ago
    While I 100% agree with wage transparency, just like I agree with price transparency for any other good... This idea that there is some evil conspiracy to screw people is crazy to me. Everyone wants to get the best price they can for anything, I am sure when you hire a HVAC person, or a plumber you are not looking to hire the most expensive person, you are looking to hire the best value... Why do people believe employment is something different than any other goods exchange, employers buy labor from the market no different you buy a computer monitor, or a plumber. I think everyone should have transparent pricing for everything, if Space X can post pricing to launch something into orbit, then dave the plumber can publish his rates, and Amce Corp can publish what they are paying employees... "Call for pricing" should be a thing of the past for products just like "We pay competitive wages" should be a thing of the past for job ads.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      > This idea that there is some evil conspiracy to screw people is crazy to me. Bruh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... https://goodjobsfirst.org/conspiring-against-competition/ https://goodjobsfirst.org/conspiring-against-competition/ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/14/business/economy/wages-antitrust-law-us.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/14/business/economy/wages-an... https://archive.ph/2022.03.07-193856/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/07/business/economy/treasury-competition-report.html https://archive.ph/2022.03.07-193856/https://www.nytimes.com... https://www.justice.gov/atr/file/903511/download https://www.justice.gov/atr/file/903511/download
      - phpisthebest 3y ago
        Bruh.... exceptions do not make a rule
        toomuchtodo 3y ago
        If $96 billions in fines over two decades and thousands of companies doesn’t demonstrate a pattern, I don’t know what to tell you. Perhaps we’re haggling over the conspiracy ruler. Refer to your quote I quoted, and the data provided. There is clearly a broad effort to suppress wages, even if everyone involved isn’t getting together at a Skull and Bones convention to do it.
  - BlackEngineer 3y ago
    I mean; that sounds like a personal problem. If you take responsibility for your life and are honest with yourself about the value you bring to the table, then what you’re saying is moot.
    - deprecative 3y ago
      I often forget how techbro-libertarian this site can be. Carry on.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  Thats from the candidates perspective. Its no less helpful than not publishing the range.
- maxerickson 3y ago
  The supposed issue there would be missed matches no? If the range really is quite wide, the employer probably isn't really trying very hard to hire at the top end and someone at that price can compare it to their options well enough before spending time on it.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  A bottom limit is always helpful, for all applicants. For those who expect more and do not want to waste time, they can look elsewhere. For prospective labor sellers, such as high school and college students or career changers, the bottom limit (and its trend) can help them project cash flow if they were to pursue that type of work. And it results in a more efficient allocation of labor for the country as a whole. For example, it could more quickly signal to people that we need fewer paper pushers and more trades workers.
noku 3y ago
Or 0k-infinity, which is the current state!
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  Sure, if that’s how the employer wants to do it. I wouldn’t say that’s the current state though.
BlackEngineer 3y ago
It’s not a real problem for people who’s skill set is commoditized. This is a real problem for high value employees. This all really feels like McDonalds employees forcing the rest of us to negotiate the way they have to.

seanoliver 3y ago

> - forcing a range means these ranges will skew lower so higher performing people will lose out and average salaries will go down I could easily see this having the opposite effect: Forcing a range causes employers (particularly those with less name recognition) to increase posted salaries in order to get people interested enough to apply. I don't see how posting lower salaries would do anything but discourage top applicants.

marcus_holmes 3y ago
I can see how companies paying their current staff a lower salary would be hesitant to post the new job at a higher salary range. There would be a strong temptation to post at a lower range, despite that not attracting the best new talent, to avoid the demands of pay raises from the existing staff.
- NoraCodes 3y ago
  Sounds like a good thing. Those companies will either pay their workers what they're worth, or hurt for talent.

genocidicbunny 3y ago

> some roles don’t really have a budget, salary will depend on applicant and can range a lot Of course they all have a budget. You're not going to have a $1m range on pay for the same position that depends on the applicant, except for maybe a few exceptional cases.

BlackEngineer 3y ago
Could it be that your experience and skills are common and so you don’t really have experience with salary negotiation in this context. Like, everybody I know that advocates for this couldn’t imagine a world where the skills they’ve developed play a role in negotiation.

hotnfresh 3y ago

> - forcing a range means these ranges will skew lower so higher performing people will lose out and average salaries will go down Executive comp being disclosed appears, if anything, to have had the opposite effect.

barry-cotter 3y ago

That’s what the evidence shows, yeah. Pay transparency benefits employers at the cost of high performers because they can credibly commit to not paying more. > Equilibrium effects of pay transparency in a simple labor market > Public discourse on pay transparency has not focused on equilibrium effects: how greater transparency impacts hiring and bargaining. To study these effects, we combine a dynamic wage-bargaining model with data from online markets for low-skill, temporary jobs that differ in their level of transparency. Wages are more equal, but lower under transparency. Transparency increases hiring and employer profits, rising 27% in an online field experiment. A key intuition is high transparency commits employers to negotiating aggressively, because a highly paid worker's salary affects negotiations with other workers. We discuss implications for the gender wage gap and employers' endogenous transparency choices. https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3328526.3329645 https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3328526.3329645 > Equilibrium effects of pay transparency > The discourse around pay transparency has focused on partial equilibrium effects: how workers rectify pay inequities through informed renegotiation. We investigate how employers respond in equilibrium. We study a model of bargaining under two‐sided incomplete information. Our model predicts that transparency reduces the individual bargaining power of workers, leading to lower average wages. A key insight is that employers credibly refuse to pay high wages to any one worker to avoid costly renegotiations with others. When workers have low individual bargaining power, pay transparency has a muted effect. We test our model with an event‐study analysis of U.S. state‐level laws protecting the right of private sector workers to communicate salary information with their coworkers. Consistent with our theoretical predictions, transparency laws empirically lead wages to decline by approximately 2%, and wage declines are smallest in magnitude when workers have low individual bargaining power. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w28903/w28903.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w28903/w289...

plagiarist 3y ago

What is this industry where a few people are being paid so far beyond their peers that moving salaries to a market-decided fair range brings the average salary down?

made_this_acct4 3y ago
Engineering

jahewson 3y ago

The range is not forced and salaries of existing employees are not disclosed, so this effect does not hold. A talented individual is free to negotiate above the pay range and the range for a new role does not have to reflect the salaries of existing employees in that role.