Gen Z Won’t Apply To Jobs If Salary Range Not Listed

A study of 1,000 recent graduates and U.S. post-secondary students revealed that 85% of respondents were “less likely to apply for a job if the company does not disclose the salary range in the job posting.” That is according to the recent study conducted by Adobe’s Future Workforce Study and Advanis.

Would that high percentage of applicants choosing to forego roles that do not include a salary range be present from other generations? Likely not. While we are not aware of a study directly addressing this question with the baby boomer generation, Gen X, or the millennials, anecdotally, we
suspect not given that each of those generations entered a workforce—and worked for many years—in a system that typically did not favor such transparency. But as conversations surrounding pay transparency and more laws go into effect, we are hopeful to see a similar shift throughout the entirety of the workforce.

So, what has contributed to this rejection by Gen Z? Could it be this generation’s embracing of equity and fairness, which pay transparency helps to support? Could it be the use of social media that has normalized the sharing of life details that were once considered private? Could it be the after-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the shift of this generation in their views of work and employer power? Regardless of the reasoning, we are encouraged to see this shift in at least one generation and hope that the momentum continues throughout the entirety of the workforce to encourage more pay transparency for roles.