DENVER — The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a huge shift in remote work but some job listings for those remote jobs say Coloradans shouldn't bother applying.
Several postings include language like, "This role is remote eligible. We are hiring in all states except Colorado." So why is Colorado being left out?
A new state law that recently went info effect requires employers to disclose salaries for open positions. The measure is meant to increase transparency and prevent gender-based pay discrimination, but there appears to be some unintended consequences.
"What we’re seeing is that a very small fraction of employers when they have remote jobs are writing that they don’t want Coloradans to apply based on a bit of a misperception that this eliminates the need to post the pay," said Scott Moss, Director of Labor Standards and Statistics for the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
CDLE staffed sampled 200 remote job postings and said less than 1% are excluding Coloradans.
"They don’t have to post the pay if they’re out of state entirely because the law doesn’t apply to them but excluding Coloradans from remote jobs if you’re an out of state company is an exclusion of your own talent pool to avoid the applicability of a law that doesn’t even apply to you," said Moss.
Moss went on to confirm CLDE is actively investigating a Colorado company that is excluding Coloradans in order to avoid posting salary information.
A Denver-based software engineer first discovered the phenomenon when he stumbled upon a post on Reddit where people were discussing job postings that excluded Colorado workers. Aaron Batilo has been working remotely for years and he was shocked to find out some companies were actively trying to avoid hiring people in Colorado.
“I saw that post I thought oh well I wonder would there be interest in a website where people could track this," said Batilo.
He decided to start a website where people can submit job postings that are excluding Coloradans. The site is called Coloradoexcluded.com and Batilo joked that he thought of the name in about 30 seconds. He said he only posted two job listings and the rest have been submitted organically.
Batilo said he feels for workers in Colorado who are searching for a new job only to realize they're being left out.
"I do feel for them especially coming out of something like the COVID pandemic a lot of companies, a lot of employees have newly discovered that they really enjoy working remotely and now we kind of have a whole state where our prospects are being taken away from us," Batilo said.
