Four years ago, Michelle Hamaoui arrived in Vancouver from Lebanon and got a job in which she felt she was underpaid. She says going forward, she won’t do that again.
Next time she’s job searching,the IT project manager wants to know what she’s getting herself into before applying — and that includes the salary. When she first came to Canada, she was unfamiliar with the job market and she says that information made public would have been helpful when negotiating.
“You don’t want to go through the whole process of doing four months of interviews with a company only to realize at the end that the offer does not match what you were looking for or what is actually sustainable for you,” she said.
Hamaoui is one of many people in the private sector hoping to see provincial governments require compensation information to be included in job listings.
“There is zero reason for that not to be disclosed the same way it’s working in the public sector,” she said. “There’s no reason it shouldn’t work for the private sector.”
B.C.’s NDP government, led by John Horgan, says it’s considering the move as a measure to reduce gender wage gaps.
Legislatively, the movement is gaining steam in the United States. Colorado already requires pay scales in job ads. New York City’s requirement is set to begin in November, and the state of Washington to follow in 2023. Several other states require the information to be given if the job seeker asks.
And across the Atlantic, the…
