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The Industries With the Most—and Least—Salary Transparency

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As the trend toward pay transparency continues, companies across the nation are starting to include salary ranges in their job postings – but there are some industries and organizations that lead the pack. 

Workers are increasingly adding salary transparency to their list of job requirements, as it allows them to discuss and negotiate pay and promotes pay equity amongst different genders and races.

According to recent research from Adzuna, a job search engine, the best industries for pay transparency are charitable jobs and trade/construction jobs. Ten percent of open roles in the charity disclose salary in their job postings, while 5% of construction jobs follow suit.

Adzuna also found the worst industries for salary transparency – only 1% of job postings in the travel industry include pay ranges, and retail jobs ate the least transparent at 0.5%.

Paul Lewis, chief marketing officer at Adzuna, says that the fallout from trends like the Great Resignation prompted these industries to increase salary transparency as a means to attract more workers.

"They already know that a transparent, honest, open approach will get you the best quality candidates," Lewis tells CNBC Make It. "But they've seen the benefit of being able to do this when there are skills shortages, to get the number of people they need applying for the roles."

Some specific companies also do a great job of disclosing pay ranges.

Based on Adzuna's findings, these are the 5 best companies for salary transparency as of November 2022:

1. Host Healthcare

Industry: Health-care Staffing
Headquarters: San Diego, CA
Proportion of vacancies advertising a salary: 99.64%

2. Pulse Clinical Alliance

Industry: Health-care Staffing
Headquarters: Jacksonville, FL
Proportion of vacancies advertising a salary: 97.68%

3. Supporting Strategies

Industry: Accounting
Headquarters: Beverly, MA
Proportion of vacancies advertising a salary: 96.40%

4. Remedy Intelligent Staffing

Industry: Manufacturing
Headquarters: Atlanta, GA
Proportion of vacancies advertising a salary: 96.28%

5. ResourceMFG

Industry: Manufacturing
Headquarters: Atlanta, GA
Proportion of vacancies advertising a salary: 95.48%

According to Sid Upadhyay, co-founder and CEO at WizeHire, a hiring platform for small businesses, these companies, and others in charitable, trade and construction industries, may be more transparent with salary due to "industry norms."

"Construction, for example, has been a per-project per-day industry in some cases, especially when you think about subcontractors," Upadhyay tells CNBC Make It. So the culture there has been very much an open marketplace. Today, this is the job and this is the compensation. Tomorrow, it might be different."

Upadhyay predicts that as more big companies move towards visibility around pay, businesses in currently lacking industries will start to follow suit. 

"Even if your community does not have a regulatory requirement for you to list compensation, employers will likely start to go in this direction over time in order to win and compete and find the best talent."

Want to earn more and work less? Register for the free CNBC Make It: Your Money virtual event on Dec. 13 at 12 p.m. ET to learn from money masters like Kevin O'Leary how you can increase your earning power.

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