Are you tired of scouring through job listings without any mention of compensation? Well, you’re in luck! According to recent data from Indeed, salary transparency has more than doubled in the past three years. In February 2020, only 18% of job listings included employer-provided salary information. Fast forward to February 2023, and that number has skyrocketed to 44%.
While pay transparency laws have played a role in this increase, Indeed researchers noted that the growth has been observed even in areas without such requirements. Interestingly, STEM-focused fields, such as banking, finance, mathematics, and software development, saw the most significant increase in salary disclosure.
Although pay transparency has made strides in many regions, the South has been slower to adapt. However, metropolitan areas in Seattle, San Francisco Bay, and San Jose experienced the most substantial year-over-year increases in pay transparency following mandates. Seattle saw a 166% increase, while San Francisco Bay’s salary advertising jumped by 185%. San Jose’s metropolitan area saw a whopping 268% increase in transparency.
Utah led the cohort of high-transparency job areas without mandates, with at least half of postings in the Provo-Orem area, Salt Lake City, and the Ogden-Clearfield area providing salary information.
Researchers suggest that even just introducing legislation could drive momentum. They point to Hawaii’s HB745 bill introduced in January 2023, which resulted in a 77% increase in Honolulu job listings that include salary information over the past year.
Interestingly, STEM industries have seen the most significant increase in salary disclosure, but they still lag overall. Roles in industrial engineering, chemical engineering, banking, and finance have the lowest salary visibility in job postings, advertising pay in fewer than a third of posted jobs. In contrast, childcare positions, security and public safety jobs, and dentistry roles disclose pay in more than half of their job postings.
Why post salary information on job listings? According to Indeed’s researchers, tight labor market conditions are a factor in higher rates of salary transparency. Employers are looking for ways to attract workers in the hot labor market, leading to more job listings with disclosed pay.
The trend of disclosing pay ranges in job listings is on the rise, with the Society for Human Resource Management reporting that 67% of organizations include starting pay in their job postings. Listing pay ranges has led to more people applying to open roles, with 70% of respondents saying so. In contrast, 82% of U.S. workers are more likely to consider a job if the pay range is available, while 74% are less interested in applying to jobs with undisclosed pay bands.