As Colorado’s job posting data shows, there does seem to be a link between an area having tight pay transparency laws and a drop in the number of remote job listings for that area. With remote jobs, companies can pick and choose from more employees across the country. This makes it less of a loss for them to exclude an entire state from their recruiting efforts so they can continue to keep the job’s expected pay range out of ads. That is not the case for in-person jobs. If a factory in Colorado needs a foreman, they don’t have the luxury of not advertising in Colorado just because they would have to include pay information. There are some reasons for businesses as a whole to prefer to guard their pay scales. It keeps job seekers and potential employees in the dark about compensation, giving employers an edge in negotiations. A more generous interpretation is that they don’t want to be excluded from candidates’ job searches just because of a pay range that may not capture all of the other forms of compensation the position offers. However, this method of hiring and compensating has contributed to historic pay inequities between genders, races, and against other groups such as LGBTQ employees. It has also created an opaque and frustrating hiring process for job seekers. As more jurisdictions mandate pay transparency, companies may want to get ahead of the curve and become more transparent voluntarily. This would serve both as a way of differentiating themselves from competitors for talent, and to ensure the hiring process moves more smoothly, with the salary range acting as a filter. Such changes in transparency should also apply to internal job applicants. This could help ensure a company’s present employees feel valued enough to deserve more honesty and openness between themselves and the company. As Bloomberg Law puts it, “the risks of getting this wrong — especially during the Great Resignation — are enormous, given the direct link between pay transparency and employee retention. In the absence of having accurate ways of determining and reporting this information, companies will be at a competitive disadvantage and risk not staying in compliance.” The process of setting ranges should be done deliberately and carefully, and should be regularly reevaluated. The pay range review process can even be designed to unearth gender or race pay disparities. To do so, employers need to constantly measure and assess pay gaps, and make other reforms as they come across problems. This would allow a company to be proactive about fixing those inequities, further burnishing their image and attractiveness to potential applicants, while staying compliant across jurisdictions.