Buffalo Next: How much does that job pay? Transparency law sheds light

If you’re hired for a job with an employer in New York, how much can you expect to be paid?

Under a newly enacted law state law, employers are required to provide a pay range for job openings.

It is called pay transparency, and it is a step some other states have taken. New York’s law, which covers employers with four or more employees, took effect about two months ago. Employers also have to post a job description that details a new hire’s responsibilities.

“It is a change, which basically says if you’re going to have a job advertisement, a promotion, a transfer opportunity, a new position, your job posting needs to have some critical information, like salary range,” said Yvonne Martinez, the state Department of Labor’s deputy commissioner for research and strategic planning. “It needs to have a job description. All key information for anybody looking at the potential opportunity and trying to think about, ‘Is this for me?’ “

Companies that fail to comply with the law can be fined $1,000 for the first violation, $2,000 for a second violation, and $3,000 for the third violation and beyond.

Employers have to make a “good-faith” effort with pay ranges. In the Labor Department’s eyes, that means setting a range that an employer “legitimately believes they are willing to pay at the time of the advertisement’s posting.”

The Labor Department’s guidance to employers is “you should not have a pay range that is so broad that a regular person cannot ascertain what they would actually be paid,” Martinez said.

Claire Stroh of Lighthouse Technology Services, which provides staffing…