Are Companies Required to Post Salary Ranges?

👋 Welcome back to Never Job Search Alone! This week, we're clarifying the legal requirements around posting salary ranges in job ads, and what to expect as a job seeker.

Q: I recently saw a LinkedIn post suggesting that not including salary ranges in job postings is illegal. Is it?  

A: The claim that it’s illegal to omit salary ranges from job postings primarily applies to specific cities and states (like NYC, Colorado, and Washington State) that have laws in place requiring employers to disclose salary ranges in job advertisements.  

These laws are part of a bigger trend towards salary transparency in employment practices, aimed at creating an equal playing field and helping candidates make informed decisions.  

Some companies try to get around this by posting that job seekers from certain states are excluded from consideration, or by posting absurd ranges ($50K – $350K 👀), but generally these laws are following a trend that we at Boly:Welch LOVE and have put in practice — willingly — for years.  

Outside of these specific locations with salary transparency laws in place, there is no legal requirement to post salaries in all job descriptions — and it’s certainly not illegal nationwide.  

Outside of hiring, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) grants most employees the right to discuss their wages openly — even in workplaces that aren’t unionized! That means employers can’t legally prevent employees from sharing salary information (as it pertains to the terms and conditions of their employment).  

This ban on pay secrecy is different from the salary transparency trend! 

We include ranges in most roles we post at Boly:Welch, because we think it makes the process better for everyone involved when the scope of the role is understood from the outset.  

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