San Diego is the best city in California for job hunters when it comes to how often salaries are included in job listings, according to an analysis by Ringover, a cloud-based telecom provider. Ringover’s study found that almost 74 percent of San Diego job ad descriptions included salary ranges. San Jose closely trailed, with 73 percent of ads including salaries.San Diego came in second nationwide, topped by Seattle, where almost 77 percent of job ads included salary data.The study looked at more than 35,000 job listings and found that 43 percent posted salary information, either as a range or a precise figure. At the bottom of the list: Charlotte, North Carolina, with fewer than 12 percent of job ads including pay details. Houston was second from last, with around a quarter of ads posting salaries. Another study published a few months ago by hiring hub Indeed.com found that the San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad area was in the top 10 nationwide for salary transparency, though it came in at No.10. Indeed found that almost 65 percent of San Diego ads included salary info in February, up from 26.5 percent three years earlier. The most transparent region in that study was in and around Denver.Indeed also noticed that, across the nation, employers are including salary information far more frequently than they used to. Almost 45 percent of job ads did so in February 2023, up from around 18 percent in February 2020.The trend is correlated with legislation that promotes pay transparency.According to Nerd Wallet, eight states have pay transparency laws: Washington, Rhode Island, New York, Nevada, Maryland, Connecticut, Colorado and California. Maryland’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Law, which requires employers to provide a pay range if job applicants ask, went into effect in 2020, and the other states followed with laws of their own. New York’s will go into effect in September. Some cities also have pay transparency laws — including New York City, Jersey City and Cincinnati. California’s amendment to its Equal Pay Act, which went into effect this year, requires certain employers to post salaries — both for in-person and remote jobs. “As of January 1, 2023, an employer with 15 or more employees must include the pay scale for a position in any job posting. If an employer with 15 or more employees engages a third party to announce, post, publish, or otherwise make known a job posting it must provide the pay scale to the third party and the third party must include it within the job posting. The Labor Commissioner interprets this to mean that the pay scale must be included within the job posting if the position may ever be filled in California, either in-person or remotely,” states the Department of Industrial Relations.Devon K. Roepcke, a San-Diego based employment lawyer, said the law’s intent is to prevent persistent, systemic discrimination. He used women — who have historically been paid less per hour than men for the same job — as an example.“If women are paid less for their first job, they go to their next job,” he said. If that next employer bases pay on the applicant’s previous compensation, “that institutionalizes and continues the discrimination. They may switch jobs, but they’re still being discriminated against on wages, because they’re being paid based on the last discriminatory job that they had. That’s sort of the idea behind this.”He added that while it may be too early to see what if any impact the state’s pay transparency rules are having, as a lawyer representing employees, the effect he will likely see is fewer pay discrimination claims.“(If) that person who maybe has been discriminated against in their previous job applies for a new job and is getting a fair rate based on their experience or their qualifications, there will not be an impact for someone like me, who does plaintiffs’ litigation,” he said. “If it’s working, we’re not going to know about it.”A broader effect, felt beyond California, might be in how employers view salary transparency — from an optional detail to a must-have for a compelling job listing. Indeed noted that employers might be motivated to post salaries to compete in a tight labor market, “but there are also hints of geographic spillover from states with regulations in place.”A search on Indeed conducted Monday morning turned up just a few listings with no posted pay rate or range. But those same jobs posted to other websites included salary info. For example, on Indeed Palomar Health didn’t include pay info for an emergency room nursing job, but on another job site, it included a range of $53.55 to $80.43 an hour.Other jobs with no salary on Indeed were with the San Diego Community College District. A listing for a Research Assistant 1 opening invites applicants to “Click here for the hourly pay rate,” but there was no working link. At the district’s own website, a link led to a page with links to multiple salary schedules that a job seeker would need to spend time deciphering in order to find the correct rate. On one of those tables, toward the middle: “Research Assistant 1,” with an hourly rate of $20.37. A ZipRecruiter ad for a financial controller, from engineering staffing agency Entegee, has salary information, but it is confusing: is the “60-70” an hourly or yearly rate? Either way, it is below the average annual salary of $207,400 to $289,300 for a controller, according to Salary.com.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2023-07-04/job-hunting-san-diegans-get-the-best-intel-on-salaries-study-says
Job hunting? San Diegans have the best intel on salaries, study says
