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Europe to End "Salary Secrecy": Employee Salaries to Become Public by 2026
- neilv 2y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20240909181359/https://fikku.com/111920 https://web.archive.org/web/20240909181359/https://fikku.com...
- paxys 2y agoSalary ranges. Plenty of states in the US already have this law.
- johnnyanmac 2y agoWill they have ways to check companies who do "$60k-250k" kinds of ranges? I think that's the main thing the US hasn't really touched
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- toomuchtodo 2y agoThis would apply to ~200M workers in the EU. Seems like a big deal, even if a handful of states in the US have similar policy. The entire US labor force only has ~164M workers. Other US states will catch up, eventually. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/quick-facts-about-state-salary-range-transparency-laws/ https://www.americanprogress.org/article/quick-facts-about-s... (Texas and Florida notably do not, and likely won't for some time due to state politics; they are the second [30M] and third [22M] states by population, respectively)
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- matsemann 2y agoAt least in Norway it's already public what everyone makes. I can look up the taxable salary information about anyone (so salary after deductions but it's probably ok close). Also, even without that, salary of public employees is part of the information you can request to view. I feel discussing salaries is quite common here. At work someone made a spreadsheet everyone fills their salary into if they want, experience, tenure etc and you can see how you compare. It's a great way of leveling the information imbalance that's normally there. Edit: not sure why I'm down voted. I'm just saying how it is here, don't take it out on me if you don't like the concept, heh!
- JoelJacobson 2y agoIn Sweden too
- impossiblefork 2y agoYes, and I think where this kind of thing is useful is in job advertisements.
- IncreasePosts 2y agoAssuming I was Norwegian and for some reason was getting paid way more than my coworkers, could I format my deductions so that it looked like I was paid on par with them, but be able to recover most of the money later?
- christkv 2y agoI guess it's technically possible but there are not that many deductions that would have a significant impact on your salary information.
- _ZeD_ 2y agowhy would you try to do that?
- onlyrealcuzzo 2y agoSo you pay less income tax? Every tax avoid-er tries to find deductions from nothing.
- switch007 2y agoClickbait. Google 'Directive 2023/970' for many better other articles A very amateur looking site too. Domain registered in 2023. Few Google references to the name. Can't handle HN load. The "About Us" contains a link to https://7bn.org/team https://7bn.org/team , which gives a Cloudflare error and https://7bn.org https://7bn.org returns a web hosting "Default Web Site Page" And 50 upvotes while the site isn't even loading? Hilarious
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- voytec 2y agoLooks like ML-generated garbage with multiple accounts driving "traffic". HN is heavily infested with ML-generated posts and what appears to be account botnets voting or commenting with LLM-generated output. Setting "showdead" to "yes" in HN profile settings is the red pill. I recently triggered[0] some LLM-based robot, by mentioning poor air quality in India in scope of reported cancer rates. You can read the first paragraph of all these "[dead]" responses and you'll get the pattern. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41215564 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41215564 (HN red pill - you need showdead=yes setting in user profile to see this spam)
- monkeyfun 2y agoWow, thanks for posting that, it was seriously impressive and surreal. I mean, even if it was entirely some random Indian poster with no automated assistance, which is still more than plausible, that speaks to a pretty shocking amount of dedication to shit things up that I usually only see on imageboards. Then add in the obvious signs he tried to use AI at at least some stages, and that's where it gets actually wild to me, because if the posts were even slightly: - more coherent - less irrelevant - less duplicated - timed a bit further apart I can totally see most undiscerning readers never assuming that was all one person or arguably less than one person with automation.
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- mylastattempt 2y agoTitle reads like there will be public access to all employees' salaris as of 2026. Obviously not quite the case. > {...} Given that the main objective of the measure is to reduce salary inequality, companies will have to make salaries or salary ranges for each position public. In addition, they will have to share with their employees the criteria used to set these remunerations. They will also have to provide information on salary inequalities within the company, broken down by gender. > {...} As of 2026, employees will have the right to request and receive in writing information about their individual salary and the average salary ranges of colleagues performing the same job or one of equal value. {...} In order to maintain competitiveness and privacy, the European directive sets access limits to the information, prohibiting the request of this information for purposes other than the defense of their salary equality rights.
- jbm 2y agoGiven that it is Europe, I'd be far more interested in their breakdown by race and origin. That won't paint as nice a picture though.
- yuppiepuppie 2y agoWonder how this will work for remote companies. Will the post a super large band for positions ranging across Europe? Or will it geographically defined?
- teekert 2y agoAfaik this is often already done, for example: [0], page 50 among others. [0]: https://www.fnv.nl/getmedia/89baa302-e76e-43da-a6f1-3eb983dec26c/317-philips-cao-01-01-2023-tm-30-06-2024-v16102023.pdf?ext=.pdf https://www.fnv.nl/getmedia/89baa302-e76e-43da-a6f1-3eb983de...
- jacobp100 2y agoThe title makes it very easy to make incorrect assumptions about how this works. It’s not individual salaries that are made public, just ranges and averages
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- jimbob45 2y agoHaving a range at all greatly reduces individual bargaining power. My understanding is that the EU has had a terrible time recently attracting and retaining both businesses and talent. I don't see how this will help solve their issue.
- diggan 2y agoHow does more information reduce the bargaining power for potential employees? In my mind its the opposite, but maybe I miss something obvious?
- jppope 2y agoOther companies know easily what their competitors are paying... you can't leverage labor market competition to bump your salary. You can't start a bidding war between employers.
- surgical_fire 2y agoLet's pretend companies don't collude to suppress salaries. Of course, this would never happen. In capitalism, fair competition is a given.
- pdonis 2y ago> companies don't collude to suppress salaries If companies treat employees as commodities, which is largely the case, they don't have to collude to suppress salaries. The basic economics of commodities is enough. The only way for employees to really have any bargaining power is to not be commodities; but trying to do that as employees is swimming against a strong economic current, because companies who can't treat their employees as commodities are in a more precarious business position than companies that can. In other words, if you really think you're being underpaid as an employee compared to the value you create, your best option is to stop being an employee and become an owner of a company. And as an owner, if you are going to have any employees, you are going to end up under strong business pressure to treat them as commodities, so if you don't want to do that, your best option is to not have any employees in the first place: the owners either do the work themselves or outsource it to the owners of other companies with contracts.
- baxtr 2y agoHow is this compatible with EUs relentless focus on privacy? What if I don’t want my colleagues or even people outside of my company to know how much I earn?
- isoprophlex 2y agoMaybe read TFA before jumping to outraged conclusions. You must publicize salary ranges and averages per function or function group.
- baxtr 2y agoI read the article. Maybe instead of downvoting you should engage in a meaningful discussion. You should also know that any information can be used to triangulate other information. That’s exactly why people are focused on data privacy. I’m also not outraged. I just think it’s a perfect example of cognitive dissonance. Privacy is good in one case. The same privacy is bad in another case. Objectively they’re the same.
- cokeandpepsi 2y ago[dead]
- School-Cotton 2y agoHow will this work with VC-backed startup where a large chunk of compensation is options of unknown value?
- hexo 2y agoit is not of unknown value. in fact, they are valued as you have to pay taxes from it
- mewpmewp2 2y agoI'm from Europe. I don't have to pay taxes from RSUs before I have actually sold the stock, even if it's vested and neither do I have to pay any taxes on options until I have made actual profit from them. But yes, I do wonder if it will direct a lot of negotiations into the more "benefits" section of the thing.
- hexo 2y agoInteresting, obviously I must be in other EU country, or laws have changed, but here it was mandatory to pay taxes from vested RSUs.
- School-Cotton 2y agoThe original thread was about options, not RSUs. Not sure if it makes a difference.
- mewpmewp2 2y agoAt the point of vesting and at what price point? Price at vesting?
- systemtest 2y agoDoes your country not tax unrealised capital gains? Or fictional gains? Mine does.
- Arnt 2y ago
- systemtest 2y agoHate to be pedantic but it's European Union or European Parliament, not Europe. And it's a directive, not a law. Also, "Employees Will Know How Much Their Colleagues Earn" is a false claim as this only reports salary ranges for the function and the average salary. 2026 is only for the Spanish implementation of this directive. And for Spain, it's only large companies that need to provide it by then.
- hammock 2y agoNot to be a cynic but sometimes it seems directives are enforced more than laws in the EU.
- diggan 2y agoThat's not cynical at all, just misinformed about what the difference is between the two. Laws are created by member states themselves, directives are the "goals" EU sets for the member states. Consider them "specifications" for the members to deal with the implementation of those specs.
- craigmorrison 2y agoI’m not sure what that means. Directives are only enforceable through the laws that member states pass to implement them.
- NightlyDev 2y agoI agree. The author seems to be confused about the difference between EU and Europe. Some places in Europe, peoples personal income, fortune, and tax, is already publicly available. But that is not true for the EU.
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- tschellenbach 2y agoI actually think this is good for both employees and companies. Transparency makes the market more efficient.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoPrice transparency being a necessary condition of efficient markets is taught in microecon 101. The only reason prices are not transparent is because someone wants to (or thinks they are) profiting from the inefficiency in the market.
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- vasco 2y agoThe best part is companies being forbidden from asking how much you make. The rest is super light, just averages and ranges.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoSometimes transparency can backfire and result in strict schedules of salaries that prevent government agencies from hiring the best talent. It also results in everyone being given standard pay and promotions being based on time in the team, instead of paying for performance. These behaviors make it easier for managers to avoid difficult conversations but also make public agencies perform poorly.
- mkl95 2y agoEU companies often post salary ranges but they are often something ridiculous like 50-100K EUR, which makes this law potentially useless unless it also enforces companies to post their actual ranges.
- mewpmewp2 2y agoBut also different people can have very different effectiveness and productivity even at a same role, it can be a huge multiplying difference. How would you handle that aspect fairly?
- dosman33 2y agoThat's certain to spread joy.
- jppope 2y agoSo question for HN on this topic: I've always considered salaries not being public to be better for me because historically I've been able to negotiate well when we get to that stage, but I know that this isn't the case for everyone. I am also aware that employers can pay for previous w2 salary info (assuming the company used a major payroll provider)... and there are other strategies that companies use that gives them an edge in negotiations... but for the most part it seems like making salary info public really only hurts employees at lower compensation levels and will reduce income because the negotiation step will go away. That is workers will no longer be able to benefit from asymmetric information. It seems like people view this as a progressive measure that will help workers, but I don't see it that way at all. I think it will help SOME workers but the most competent, resourceful workers. What am I missing? Why are governments (e.g. Colorado, EU) wanting to enact these sorts of directives?
- matsemann 2y agoYou're assuming you're negotiating well, but what if more info just raises the floor for everyone? How do you even know you're negotiating well, if you don't know the baseline? I'm curious if most people just think they're above average in competency, and also think they're above average in pay.
- vundercind 2y agoAsk CEOs if they preferred the days of salary secrecy for their jobs.
- ninininino 2y agoWill they make net worth, wealth, and equity ownership public? Doubtful, wouldn't want the proles to know how much the feudal elite own, just each other.