This week has seen the launch of a campaign to make salary transparency a legal right.
Call for a new law aims to make questions on applicants’ pay history illegal as majority of candidates report ‘feeling uncomfortable’
A campaign to make salary transparency the law has been launched this week (9 January) after data analysis found the majority (80 per cent) of candidates felt uncomfortable when asked about their salary.
The campaign, ‘The Great Salary Reset’, launched by Liberty Hive, is intended to start a dialogue about salaries among recruiters.
It has called for new law making questions on a candidate’s salary history illegal, and also making it a legal requirement to list salary details on job adverts.
The campaign comes after a recent study by the Fawcett Society found the majority (90 per cent) of candidates felt questions on previous pay packets were an ‘unfair way’ to determine someone’s salary.
According to Liberty Hive’s data, response times for ads with wages posted were almost 50 per cent faster and received 67 per cent more applications than those that did not.
It also found that three quarters (75 per cent) would be more likely to apply for a role that included salary range, and two thirds (65 per cent) said they shouldn’t be asked about their current or past salary – a figure that increased to 73 per cent among Asian workers and 75 per cent for Black workers.
Additionally, nearly two thirds (57 per cent) of women and more than half (54 per cent) of men felt less positive about a potential employer when they asked about salary history.