Salary Questions off limits to California Employers
California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Assembly Bill 168 on October 12, 2017, placing new restrictions and requirements on employers during the hiring process.
Designed to narrow the pay gap, particularly among people of different genders, races and ethnicities, AB 168 prohibits an employer from seeking salary history information, orally or in writing, personally or through an agent, about an applicant for employment. “Salary history information†includes compensation and benefits. Additionally, AB 168 prohibits an employer from relying on the salary history information of an applicant as a factor in determining whether to offer employment to an applicant or what salary to offer an applicant. The new law further requires employers to provide the pay scale for a position to an applicant applying for employment upon request.
California now joins Delaware, Oregon, Massachusetts, New York City, Philadelphia (currently pending legal challenge), Puerto Rico and the city of San Francisco in prohibiting employers from asking job applicants for “salary history information. AB 168 will apply to all employers, including state and local governments, and will take effect on January 1, 2018.
To prepare for compliance, California employers should evaluate their employment applications and hiring processes so as not to inquire into or rely upon applicant salary history information.
MGO will take a proactive approach to AB 168 and will remove salary inquiries from our California employment verifications.