I'm a remote worker, but my company has been putting pressure on us to get back to the office even though productivity was through the roof over the past 2.5 years and the company made record profit. As a result, I started to look elsewhere that are more remote friendly.
Recently, I have come across many job postings that specifically exclude Colorado. They always say something along the line of “this job must be performed entirely outside of Colorado”. And we are talking about multinational corporations that have employers in almost every other state.
So it got me interested. Out of all places, why exclude Colorado? It turns out that Colorado had passed a law requiring employers to state salary ranges for all job postings. The rationale is that many POC, women, and other minorities can be underpaid relative to their white/male counterparts so that having a salary range in every job posting provides more transparency for workers who may get discriminated based on their outward identities. However, I think this also helps all workers because it allows potential employees to compare salary ranges among competitors and gauge the market rates. This ensures that employers have less room to undercut potential employees by taking advantage of their ignorance on the market pulse.
This just angers me so much. These multinationals would shell out millions of dollars hiring diversity coaches and putting on public campaigns to show how inclusive and equitable they pretend to be. Yet, when something actually benefits POC and women (and potentially all workers) came along, they decided that “Colorado need not apply” is the answer. This is just so insulting and hypocritical at every level. Instead of actually helping POC/women to close the wage gap, they figured that it's easier to just fuck Colorado altogether. It also sends a very strong message that, if any other state would try to do this, there are hefty financial consequences. I can only imagine that places like Denver are losing out on thousands of remote workers simply because they implemented a sensible solution that actually helped POC/women and all workers in general.