One-half of US job postings now include information on salaries and wages

What a difference three years makes. Since Aug. 2020, the share of job postings on Indeed that include wage or salary information has doubled to 50%, according to new data from the job site.

Pay data has become more widely available as states and localities have passed legislation requiring employers to include estimated salary ranges for open positions at their companies. Since Colorado first enacted a pay transparency law in 2021, six other states have followed suit, as well as jurisdictions including New York City, Jersey City, New Jersey, and Cincinnati, Ohio. New York State’s pay transparency law took effect Sept. 17.

As a result of this new wave of legislation, job-seekers across the country have access to more data on salary potential at companies than they did previously. The fact that one-half of US job postings now include salary information suggests the practice is beneficial not only for job-seekers, but also for companies’ recruiting efforts, Cory Stahle, an economist at Indeed Hiring Lab, told HR Brew.

The states where pay data is most widely available. The US metro areas that saw the most significant uptick in job postings with salary information from August 2022 to 2023 were all in states with pay transparency laws: California, Washington, and New York. The San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara region in Silicon Valley saw the largest increase, with 73% of job postings in this area advertising salary as of Aug. 2023, up from 30% the year prior.

The New York City metro area saw a less significant uptick than metro areas in California or Washington State, with 58% of job openings advertising salary in August, a 27 percentage point increase from 2022. Stahle suspects New York City lags behind its Western counterparts because the metro area encompasses parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which haven’t yet enacted pay transparency legislation.

Some 61% of job postings in the state of New York included salaries as of August, suggesting that “there is still room for more growth once statewide disclosure requirements go into effect on September 17,” Stahle wrote in a blog post.

Here to stay. Even though pay transparency laws have only taken effect in a handful of states, they’ve had a domino effect on job postings, given HR departments may want to hire remote workers who live in states where it’s now required.

This may be part of what’s going on in Vermont, which saw the largest increase in job postings that include expected compensation after California, Washington, and New York. Given Vermont borders New York, you might see companies that do business across state lines complying, as “companies in Vermont…don’t want to miss out on the labor pool in New York,” Stahle said. Vermont legislators are also currently considering their own pay transparency law.

A separate Indeed study of 1,500 people living in the US suggests pay transparency is a valuable recruitment tool: Three-quarters of respondents said they’re more likely to apply for a job if the salary range is listed in the posting. The potential benefits of pay transparency not only to job-seekers, but also employers, may help boost available data on compensation in future, Stahle said.

“As we pass this 50% threshold, and as we see more of these laws going into full force, I think we can expect to see that pay transparency is something that it’s going to be here to stay,” Stahle said.