Salary transparency in job postings is a top priority for U.S. jobseekers, according to new research from Adzuna. The latest survey results add to a growing collection of data showing how much workers value this transparency, even as U.S. employers are among the worst for providing it.
Key results from Adzuna’s survey:
- 28% of respondents said that no salary details or a lack of salary clarity (including very large salary ranges) on job ads is their biggest frustration
- 33% said they would not attend a job interview before knowing the salary being offered
- 54% have declined a job offer after they found out the salary.
Failing to include salary information wastes time. Adzuna found that the jobseekers who declined a position after learning about the salary wasted an average of seven hours applying for the position.
It also damages trust in the employer. Just under one-third of respondents said that if a company doesn’t include salary on a job ad, they assume the company is hiding something (32%), that the company is biased in how they pay their employees (31%), or that the company would underpay them (30%).
Adzuna’s data revealed that overall only 3% of U.S. companies are transparent about salary. It also identified leaders vs laggards:
- Washington, D.C., is the best area for salary transparency, with 19% of job ads including this information. Delaware, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Maine, and Rhode Island are the worst, with less than 1.5% of job ads including salary.
- Charitable jobs are the best industry sector (10% of job ads include salary information), while travel (1%) and retail (0.5%) are the worst.
Adzuna is leading a campaign to make salary transparency a federal requirement (it’s already required in some state and local jurisdictions). They’ve started a change.org petition.
