Pay transparency in job postings is trending upward with 57.8% of all U.S. job postings on Indeed last month containing some salary information, up from 52.2% in September 2023, according to recent data from Indeed’s Hiring Lab.
Childcare jobs remain the most transparent, with 81.7% of postings listing salary information, followed by personal care/home health (74.5%); security/public safety (74.1%); dental (73.2%) and driving (72.7%), Indeed Outreach Economist Daniel Culbertson wrote last week.
“Salary transparency is increasingly becoming a common feature in job postings, especially as more states pass legislation requiring it,” Culbertson said. “But despite continued growth in salary transparency overall, some sectors and states remain more opaque than others when it comes to disclosing pay information.”
The least transparent advertised job postings were for physicians and surgeons (39.1%); medical technicians (44.6%); medical information (45%); civil engineering (45.3%) and industrial engineering (46.9%).
Compared to a year ago, the share of salary-transparent listings grew in 43 of 46 sectors analyzed by Indeed — often by large margins. The occupational group with the largest change in salary transparency was pharmacy jobs (+24 percentage points). Last month, 70.4% of pharmacy job postings contained salary info, compared to only 46.5% in September 2023.
Job postings on Indeed are increasingly impacted by salary transparency laws enacted by individual states and municipalities, Culbertson said. Unsurprisingly, the three states/locales with the largest gains in salary transparency — Hawaii, Washington, D.C., and New York — are those where pay transparency laws have taken effect during the past 12 months.
The New Jersey Legislature passed a salary transparency bill (S-2310) on Sept. 26 that is now on the Governor’s desk. The governor has until Nov. 10 to decide whether to sign the bill into law, which would then take effect seven months from its enactment.
The legislation would affect any employer doing business in New Jersey with at least 10 employees over 20 calendar weeks. It requires employers to disclose in each posting of new jobs and transfer opportunities the range of the hourly wage or salary for position and a general description of benefits and other compensation programs. Employers would be permitted to increase salaries above what is listed in the job posting when they make an offer of employment.
NJBIA was successful in securing amendments that would make the legislation more workable for employers, including a provision allowing them to award promotions based on tenure and/or performance without being subjected to the bill’s notification requirements. Other NJBIA-supported amendments raised the number of employees to 10 in order for a business to be covered by the bill’s provisions and eliminated the “private right of action” that would have potentially allowed applicants to sue in civil court over alleged violations.
