It has been reported that employers are increasingly not including salary details in jobs ads. As a result of this it is likely that they might be missing out on the best applicants.

Omitting salary details is also a surprising move for a business to make considering that the current unemployment rate is at 4.2 percent thus creating a shortage of available workers in many industries.

As a consequence of this Australian businesses are scrambling to attract the skills they need to grow.
As a result of the dwindling pool of available resources in the job market, vacancies are proving harder to fill for many employers.

A recent survey conducted by Indeed which included the responses of over 2,000 working Australians found that “65 percent of job seekers say a role’s salary is important to include in a job ad”.

However, according to the same survey “Only 9 percent of employers will always advertise a role with a salary”

Katie Furvey who works for Indeed says that there are a number of reasons for the disconnect.

“Our survey findings may reflect that employers want to appeal to applicants who are attracted to the role and the company, rather than those focused primarily on salary,” says Katie Furvey.

It is therefore understandable that employers are wary of applicants only applying for a role to achieve a rise in salary.

The reason many firms give for this is that if remuneration is the sole driver of an employee, they are more likely to leave in future when another organisation offers them more again.

It is also important to consider that other applicants may be deterred from applying if no salary is listed, especially in the candidate short market Australia is currently in the midst of.

Katie Furey agrees, suggesting that, “Being upfront about remuneration can work in everyone’s favour – greater transparency engenders confidence and trust from candidates and helps avoid surprise rejections when an offer is made,” says Ms. Furey.

However, from the perspective of an employer the large majority of businesses who choose not to disclose remuneration on a job advertisement will disclose it at the interview stage, so the latter point about surprise rejections may be a moot one.

Another possibility and reason for not advertising a salary is that displaying salaries for new hires may create issues with existing employees, especially if the renumeration offered is higher than what these employees are currently earning.

The last thing employers will want to do is create reasons for valuable existing employees to leave, especially if the war for talent is expected to intensify.

However, although the interview stage may be the safest option for employers to disclose pay details, in the current job market this option runs the risk of not attracting the required calibre of applicant in the first place.

Employers must tread a fine line in the current climate, but it appears inevitable that companies will be reviewing their strategies on how to attract new hires.

“If the last 18 months have demonstrated anything, it’s that the way we work is changing, so it follows that how job advertisements are structured can, and should, also evolve,” Says Katie Furey.

As with most things in the past two years, the pandemic has driven a lot of the change.

How employers navigate this change will go a long way to determining how successful they will be attracting the right candidates to apply for their advertised job.