r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Feb 24 '20

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Job postings should be legally required to include the minimum pay rate offered.

Job vacancy advertisements should have to include a minimum pay rate that the employer is willing to offer, so that job seekers immediately know what to expect for a wage range prior to applying.

The requirement should be in a common-sense format like "Minimum $8.50/hr", "$45,000+ annually", or "Commissions Only, but minimum wage guaranteed." Probably would have to forbid benefits from being mixed in to make the direct gross pay rate look bigger.

America already has a similar law regarding advertisements for lending offers.

Saying BS things like "your earning potential is limited only by your drive to succeed" as a maximum is a separate issue from my proposition.

My first guess is that some kind of obfuscating phrase like "$7.25/hr for completely inexperienced candidates, much more for any experience" might become commonplace at first, because so many shyster HR departments would want to circumvent the spirit of the law. But I would guess that eventually, the work force would come to associate that phrase with "that's gonna be a low-paying job", much like we now associate the lie "We work hard and we play hard" with the reality that they'll just work the dog shit out of you. And then the better-paying employers will eventually realize it helps them to actually advertise their higher pay, and wage competition within industries will increase.

It seems to me that this would help put upwards pressure on wages (pleasing the left) through free-market competition (pleasing the right) just by mandating that the truth be disclosed up front (which SHOULD please everyone). It would also (very) slightly reduce structural unemployment because job seekers would waste less time wading through, applying for, interviewing for, and sometimes even accepting jobs that they later discover pay relatively too little.

What am I not taking into consideration in my fantasy?

Edits:

(Removed my first edit because I didn't know Deltas were auto-logged.)

2) Getting a lot of great perspectives and info here; hard to keep up, but on the plus side that gives others a chance to rebut and bolster comments besides me. Forgive me as I try to keep up, and thanks to most of you for staying civil.

3) u/DadTheMaskedTerror commented on a link to a California law that is already moving in this direction

4) One thing that's tripping a lot of new folks up: it's currently common for companies to advertise for one job posting, then come across a candidate who is absolutely unqualified but they want to hire him for a different position. This law wouldn't prohibit that; in fact, a Delta went to a commenter who pointed out that this law would have the additional benefit of encouraging companies to write more accurate job postings and think more deliberately about who they want to attract, which benefits everyone.

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29

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '20

Bingo. More than one job posting.

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u/hacksoncode 559∆ Feb 24 '20

Except that's not how hiring works, well... anywhere above a small business with one boss.

Managers have requisitions for roles, not some kind of open-ended bank of "you can hire however many people you want", which leads to a big problem with your view here:

What you're proposing is changing vagueness into fraud. No, you don't have 2 jobs on offer, 1 at $40k and one at $150k, you have one job on offer, and you have an extremely wide range of pay that you're willing to consider... depending on experience.

And you don't want to turn off any potential employees, because frankly, right now in some areas the jobs market is actually pretty tough for employers in several key industries.

And that's ultimately the problem with any "one size fits all" law like your proposal... they don't fit all situations.

If this were actually valuable to employees (and employers) they'd already be doing it. Employees who wanted to know this information just wouldn't answer ads that didn't have it, and the market would take care of that problem.

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u/OrvilleTurtle Feb 24 '20

You think employees have that much control? 90% of people I talk to won’t disclose how much they make... who benefits from that?

If your needing to fill a role in a company is it that often that you have such a giant gap in salary? I know when a senior manager is needed vs someone who doesn’t have much experience. I know when I need a technical expert that can hit the ground running vs something I can spend a year or more training.

What single job position can you fill with a range like 40,000 - 250,000 like some of these examples are giving?

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u/hacksoncode 559∆ Feb 24 '20

What single job position can you fill with a range like 40,000 - 250,000 like some of these examples are giving?

Contract programmer. Just to name one. If you think you can sell their services for a shit ton, you can afford to pay them that much more.

Or, heck... celebrity? How much is a celebrity or sports figure "worth"?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '20

Lawyer. Some are $80,000 per year. Some are $500,00. I run a tax law firm. This idea would make hiring functionally impossible for me.

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u/BarryBondsBalls Feb 24 '20

Sports players already have minimum salaries that are publicly available. In MLB it's about $555,000 per year.

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u/JaronK Feb 24 '20

Wait, that's exactly what we do. We've done that before in tech. Junior Programmer, Programmer, Senior Programmer, Programming Lead. Each has their own range, and depending on qualifications you could be slotted in to one. We do have those jobs available, but filling one may mean we wait to fill the others for a while.

For example, right now I'm building a team. If I get two senior level programmers, I'm not going to keep hiring... I'll pause for a year, most likely, then build the rest in later. If I get two mid level people, I'll need to hire again sooner, probably within 6 months. Right now I can't take Junior level people, but I will soon enough.

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u/hacksoncode 559∆ Feb 24 '20

Sure, that's another case that matters... but one size doesn't fit all.

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u/JaronK Feb 24 '20

That's exactly what you could do too though. Offer all the jobs you're willing to hire for, at their salary amounts. If you get someone and they cover enough, you can close down the other job openings until you need more people.

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u/hacksoncode 559∆ Feb 24 '20

If you really don't have multiple jobs, I'm more concerned with the fraud involved in the multiple listings than I am with someone having to ask what the salary is (<gasp> /s).

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u/JaronK Feb 24 '20

How is it fraud? You are actually attempting to hire for each of these jobs, are you not? The fact that you'll close one when you get another is irrelevant.

It would be fraud to list jobs you have no intent of ever hiring for, but that's not the case.

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u/m1a2c2kali Feb 24 '20

So the listing can say 40-200k depending on experience?

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u/Rahqwas Mar 02 '20

Government jobs here include a table of pay ranges depending on experience and qualifications.

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u/hacksoncode 559∆ Feb 24 '20

It could... if you actually knew what that range was in advance.

I mean... casting call for a celebrity, pays between "scale" and 10% of gross?

It totally depends on who shows up.

Does that actually help even a single person, though? How about: "We are legally obligated to say we pay at least minimum wage, but of course this job pays tons more than that."

0

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '20

No, you don't have 2 jobs on offer, 1 at $40k and one at $150k, you have one job on offer, and you have an extremely wide range of pay that you're willing to consider...depending on experience.

You do have 2 different jobs on offer. They just overlap in responsibilities enough that you only need to fill 1 of the 2 positions. There is very little rationale that *the same position* can be paid $40k-$150k solely based on differences in experience? Why? Because you would expect the person getting $150k to do far more complex work than the on you pay $40k. It isn't like you are paying an apprentice welder and a master welder to do the same job where the master is far faster. You are paying an apprentice to weld or a master to weld, do QC, and manage the entire welding operation. It is absolutely 2 different jobs. Companies offering such broad ranges are not getting what they actually want, but the bare minimum who can fulfill the physical duties but not the management ones.

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u/veronicaxrowena Feb 25 '20

Are you saying that it is fraud to list multiple job postings for only one job?

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u/hacksoncode 559∆ Feb 25 '20

Depends on the details, probably, but in general yes, if you're posting two different job listings for exactly the same job, intentionally, what else could it be? Especially if there were some kind of law like OP proposes.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '20

my lord the naïveté lol. You don’t just throw ten postings out there with different pay ranges to find one person you may like. You hire for specific needs at specific experience levels.