The right valuation is determined by people rejecting job offers (or leaving current jobs) and accepting job offers. Repeated cleared transactions is what allows a market to determine the price.

But can also create inefficiencies for an organization because they lose institutional knowledge and incur training costs.

Markets are more efficient when transaction information is public, and hence all wages should be public. Assuming the goal is to minimize that friction.

True. It would be great if they would at least post salary ranges for jobs (based on company policy and/or the people in the role at the company).

I don't even feel like applying to most jobs. If it's not paying more than I make now, why should I waste my time? Such a pain to filter out jobs without it listed.

Colorado took the first step in that direction. If you are applying to a company that employs people in CO, you can check their CO listing.

Hence why some companies now explicitly disallow CO residents from applying for jobs. Those employers would rather lose out on CO talent instead of weakening their negotiating position by posting an explicit salary range.

Yes, but to avoid it, the employer must not have any employees in CO. The law applies for any position that can be done remotely, even if the employer does not intend to hire a CO resident, as long as the employer already has CO employees:

https://www.huschblackwell.com/newsandinsights/updated-faqs-...

>Under EPT Rule 4.3 (A), the promotion posting requirements do not apply to employees who are entirely outside of Colorado. However, if a Colorado employer has a promotion opportunity available anywhere in the company, even outside of Colorado, its Colorado employees must be notified. Under EPT Rule 4.3(B), job postings and promotional opportunities do not need to include compensation information if the job will be performed entirely outside of Colorado or if the job is posted entirely outside Colorado (i.e., not on the internet).

>INFO #9 instructs that the out-of-state exception applies “narrowly,” only where the job is tied to non-Colorado worksites (e.g., waitstaff at restaurants outside Colorado). Therefore, postings for remote positions that can be performed anywhere are subject to the EPEWA’s requirements, even if the posting states that Colorado applicants won’t be accepted. However, a non-Colorado job that may include “modest” travel to Colorado is still considered an out-of-state job not subject to the transparency requirements.

Except the ranges aren't even useful. I've seen most that are like $50k-150k. Not helpful at all in my opinion.

It will take some time, and ideally more stated will follow. If CA/WA/OR/MA/IL/NY/NJ/CT follow, then it could lead to some real change.

This strategy can be sub-optimal from the employer's perspective.

Consider yourself as an employer and assume your employees have perceived switching cost C > 0.

Your employee will approach you with bids b_1, ..., b_n all of which are substantially larger than C. So to keep your employee you will need to pay C plus some premium. In fact, not just any premium, but probably something close to max(b_1, ..., b_n).

If you can make good guesses at C and b_1..b_n, then you can retain employees by ensuring you're always giving raises between C and max(b_1, ..., b_n).

And all of that assumes that employees are fungible at any particular price point. They're not; employers also have switching costs. Among two otherwise equivalent employees you'd much prefer the one you already have.

This might be true for FAANG employers or others employing people in high demand, but based on the behavior of the vast majority of employers, it is clearly less costly of a problem than the savings of not having to pay prevailing market prices for all their employees.

You don't have to threaten to leave, you do leave.

The cost of changing jobs is pretty high, in my assessment. I mean, perhaps not if you're young, single and mobile; but if you are married with kids in school, own a home and pay a mortgage, changing jobs is personally very disruptive.

And then you have to develop a working relationship with your new boss and employer, and your new colleagues; you have to learn new tools and platforms, which may make you much less productive for up to a year. And all of these learnings carry risk - for whatever reason, the new job might not work out, and you might have to move again, this time maybe with a shotgun to your head.

The employer-employee relationship isn't symmetrical, even if you are a superstar engineer. No company has ever relocated just because a superstar engineer decided he preferred a warmer climate. Basically, staff are fungible, employers are not.