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Companies that are avoiding hiring in Colorado

coloradoexcluded.com

71–80 of 207 posts

Re: Companies that are avoiding hiring in Colorado

#71
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be even better is making all tax records public. Then everyone knows what everyone else makes. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.

I have to hard disagree here. There are a lot of bad actors and abusive/manipulative people who would use this information to unfairly pressure someone if they knew how exactly much they made.

If they had the ability to pressure someone, why would they not simply be able to press them to show them their tax returns? And would this happen with sufficient frequency to negate the benefits of price transparency?

Norway has had public tax returns for a long time.

Re: Companies that are avoiding hiring in Colorado

#72

The Colorado law to me strikes me as a pretty huge government overreach. I fully believe in minimum wage laws, and that feels like an appropriate regulation to me, but this just feels like it's almost attacking these companies, interfering with their hiring processes, and I fully see why companies would rather not bother hiring in what boils down to 1 mid-sized metro area than deal with the consequences.

I think transparency laws are a lot more important than minimum-wage laws. Give people information and you give them options; they can see at a glance if there's a better job out there than their current position, and avoid wasting time applying to jobs that won't pay better. Force people not to work at certain prices and you take away options.

Re: Companies that are avoiding hiring in Colorado

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is it has less to do with laziness and more to do with the financial cost of opening yourself up to lawsuits if you can't prove the wage difference isn't due to sexual discrimination. While I like the idea of forcing these companies to list salary on job posts I'm not sure I agree with the reason the bill was put in place. If I were a company I'd avoid CO as well. Plenty of other places to pick up employees.

>My guess is it has less to do with laziness and more to do with the financial cost of opening yourself up to lawsuits if you can't prove the wage difference isn't due to sexual discrimination. Why would they not be equally open to that risk right now? I am not seeing any special connection between publicly listing a pay range and an applicant's gender.

Wouldn't it leave them open to "I have above the minimum qualifications and experience and yet your offer is near the bottom of the range, not near the top" discrimination suits (in addition to the status quo risk of lawsuits if the company actually does pay similarly qualified men more)

Re: Companies that are avoiding hiring in Colorado

#74
post #38
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the "Why does this matter" link on the first page ( https://www.coloradoexcluded.com/about ): "Companies are excluding Colorado from their remote employment opportunities in order to avoid sharing the salary range of their open positions. In May of 2019 SB19-085, titled the Equal Pay For Equal Work Act, was signed into law in Colorado. It's a fairly short read if you're not familiar with it, but its main goal is…

> but its main goal is enabling pay transparency to allow for people to know if they're being discriminated against with their wages Won't this just lead to: "hmm, I'm not a white male and I'm making less than average white male salary, therefore I'm being discriminated against" "hmm, I'm not a while male and I'm making more than average white male salary, therefore I'm not being discriminated against"

Averages have nothing to do with it and I don't know where you're getting that from.

The goal is to limit the amount of discretion companies can exercise on a per applicant basis by forcing them to provide a salary range up front. Even if you don't care about discrimination for some reason the law should still have a positive effect on wage transparency which should benefit anyone who works for wages.

Re: Companies that are avoiding hiring in Colorado

#75
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price transparency is a basic requirement of efficient markets.

The last thing anyone wants is efficient markets in labor. It would make unions illegal, for example, as the entire raison d'etre of unions is to use market power to raise prices in a coordinated manner. So let's not start pushing for "market efficiency" arguments because those will really come back to bite the proponents of this bill.

An individual may not want efficient markets for their short term interest. A society most certainly benefits from efficient markets in the long term by properly allocating labor resources.

The bottom income/wealth deciles should definitely welcome price transparency, unless they are "temporarily" embarrassed members of the upper income/wealth deciles.

Re: Companies that are avoiding hiring in Colorado

#76
post #70
post #55

Context: Colorado’s Equal Pay Act requires jobs ads to list a salary range [1], which companies generally don't want to do. Excluding CO residents is one way companies are avoiding the law. [1] https://www.colorado.edu/hr/colorados-equal-pay-equal-work-a...

I think you mean avoid breaking the law. IANAL, but that ad without "no Colorado" might break the law.

They're avoiding the other elements of the law. It institutes a few other things besides just salary transparency. Companies also have to maintain a record of salaries/wages in order to prove they didn't discriminate based on sex and they have to announce advancement opportunities to existing employees (something many companies shy away from).

Re: Companies that are avoiding hiring in Colorado

#77
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price transparency is a basic requirement of efficient markets.

What would be even better is making all tax records public. Then everyone knows what everyone else makes. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.

And wealthy people who prefer to not show it would become targets.

Re: Companies that are avoiding hiring in Colorado

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain why minimum wage laws aren't overreach but this is?

I’ve come 180 on minimum wage. How can anyone come between me and another adult trying to exchange services and money like this? It’s kind of insane if you think about it through that lens.

Because the two adults aren't coming together from equal positions.

The worker needs to work to make money to buy food and shelter. Without a minimum wage, unskilled labor reaches a race to the bottom on wages. It's exploitative to allow an employer to pay $1/hr because no matter how low you go, you'll find someone willing to accept less because they're that desperate to survive.

Re: Companies that are avoiding hiring in Colorado

#79
post #25

Accenture is listed, but when I went to the listing, it had a CO disclaimer and listed the range. It was a massive range but a range nonetheless.

It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of companies had an approval process for complying and until then they just skipped Colorado.

Re: Companies that are avoiding hiring in Colorado

#80
post #48

Oh, neat. Hi everyone. I made this website a few months ago. If there are questions or suggestions, happy to answer them. The website was covered in the wallstreet journal and a few other places: https://www.wsj.com/articles/many-companies-want-remote-work... Definitely overkill for the website itself but I also built it as a learning opportunity so it's a react frontend with Tailwindcss, Golang + gRPC gateway, hoste…

What do you pay to host the site? It seems to have survived the hug of death so far, great work.

Very inspirational to see work from an old colleague at the top of HN. Hope you're doing well!

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