Is Your Colleague Earning More Than $200,000 a Year? Now You Can Find Out

Want to make more than $200,000 a year in New York? The options may be more plentiful than you think.

From content director at Colgate-Palmolive Co. to the diversity, equity and inclusion business manager at Macy’s Inc., the list of jobs offering the chance to make over $200,000 includes careers in a wide a range of industries, one of the early revelations from New York City’s new salary transparency law.

The measure, which takes effect Tuesday, requires nearly all New York employers to list pay on job postings, along with internal transfer or promotion opportunities. Companies hiring for remote positions that could conceivably be done from New York must also comply with the law and list minimum and maximum salary ranges, city officials have said.

The result is a trove of updated job listings at some of the nation’s most prominent employers, providing job seekers, existing employees and the merely curious with a rare glimpse at the pay practices of major companies.

Some employers, like Amazon.com Inc., have dozens of jobs with maximum pay of more than $200,000, according to listings. An opening for principal product manager in the company’s Amazon Music division lists a base salary of $197,900 to $267,800 a year in New York. A head of leadership and organisational development can make a salary of as much as $321,700.

An Amazon spokesman, August Aldebot-Green, said the company is committed to pay equity and lists the pay for some roles even when not required.

The listed ranges, which companies had to post as of 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, can help shed light on how companies set pay, a process that has long baffled both job seekers and employees. The salary data also are likely to raise questions among workers about why some jobs pay so much more than others, compensation specialists say.

Pay “is going to be all over the map,” said Susan Schroeder, a partner at Compensation Advisory Partners LLC and a longtime compensation consultant. “All of this has been done behind the scenes for years.”

How pay is determined has also become more complex, executives and advisers say. Many large companies have roughly 15 salary grades, or broad pay bands internally; human-resources staffers then try to match similar roles across departments to each of those levels, Ms. Schroeder said. Companies often then buy data sets listing salaries at rivals or in an industry as a whole in an attempt to benchmark pay to others.

New York’s law doesn’t require companies to include information on benefits, bonuses or additional stock-based compensation. Many employers note on listings that base pay can vary by location, skills and other factors. Though the law requires employers to post “good-faith” ranges, what that means in reality is up to some interpretation, executives say.

Among the listings posted so far, lower-level jobs tend to have fairly narrow ranges. By contrast, some companies list salaries for senior positions that vary by more than $200,000. An assistant vice president position involving machine learning platforms at CVS Health Corp., for example, has a posted range of $189,400 to $416,700. A CVS Health spokeswoman declined to comment.

Some ranges can be so broad they are essentially meaningless for workers, some employment attorneys say. Employers posting wide ranges may be aiming to reflect that a broad array of candidates could potentially fill the role, including those who are very senior, said Nancy Boston, director of compensation at payroll processor Automatic Data Processing Inc.

“You want to ensure if a company needs to recruit somebody who’s really highly an expert in that area, they’re able to attract that level of talent,” she said.

The position of global content director at Colgate, which seeks 10 years of experience, includes a range of $172,000 to $253,050. The position focuses on content “through the entire marketing funnel,” a posting notes. A research and innovation director position in skin health and personal care comes with a top salary of $225,750.

Some companies are also spelling out the differences in pay between locations on job listings. A position for a tax director at accounting and consulting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP says that the base pay ranges between $144,000 and $368,000 in Colorado; in New York, that salary is listed at between $158,400 and $434,000. A PwC spokeswoman didn’t immediately comment.

Cost-of-living differences can account for variations in pay between states, compensation specialists say. Colorado’s salary transparency law took effect last year, while salary ranges will be required in states such as California and Washington beginning in January. Companies that fail to comply with New York City’s law could face fines or other penalties.

Pay matters have become so complex that those who advise on it typically earn six-figure salaries, too, postings show. A position for a job architecture manager, advising clients on compensation strategies, at Deloitte has a posted salary range of $145,000 to $268,000. The posting notes that at Deloitte, “it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range.” A compensation consultant at Warner Bros. Discovery, owner of CNN and HBO, can earn as much as $187,460.

Other workplace-related roles also come with salaries topping $100,000. At Macy’s, the diversity and inclusion role, supporting the company’s chief diversity officer, lists a base salary of $142,080 to $237,000.

ADP’s Ms. Boston advised workers browsing career sites to remember that total compensation may be different than the base salary, and said she encouraged employers to be prepared to clearly articulate how pay decisions are made.

“I can assume that there will be a lot of confusion,” she said.

As European hot spots become overcrowded , travellers are digging deeper to find those less-populated but still brag-worthy locations. Greenland, moving up the list, is bracing for its new popularity.

Aria Varasteh has been to 69 countries, including almost all of Europe. He now wants to visit more remote places and avoid spots swarmed by tourists—starting with Greenland.

“I want a taste of something different,” said the 34-year-old founder of a consulting firm serving clients in the Washington, D.C., area.

He originally planned to go to Nuuk, the island’s capital, this fall via out-of-the-way connections, given there wasn’t a nonstop flight from the U.S. But this month United Airlines announced a nonstop, four-hour flight from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey to Nuuk. The route, beginning next summer, is a first for a U.S. airline, according to Greenland tourism officials.

It marks a significant milestone in the territory’s push for more international visitors. Airlines ran flights with a combined 55,000 seats to Greenland from April to August of this year, says Jens Lauridsen, chief executive officer of Greenland Airports. That figure will nearly double next year in the same period, he says, to about 105,000 seats.

The possible coming surge of travellers also presents a challenge for a vast island of 56,000 people as nearby destinations from Iceland to Spain grapple with the consequences of over tourism.

Greenlandic officials say they have watched closely and made deliberate efforts to slowly scale up their plans for visitors. An investment north of $700 million will yield three new airports, the first of which will open next month in Nuuk.

“It’s the rumbling before the herd is coming,” says Mads Mitchell, general manager of Hotel Nordbo, a 67-room property in Nuuk. The owner of his property is considering adding 50 more rooms to meet demand in the coming years.

Mitchell has recently met with travel agents from Brooklyn, N.Y., South Korea and China. He says he welcomes new tourists, but fears tourism will grow too quickly.

“Like in Barcelona, you get tired of tourists, because it’s too much and it pushes out the locals, that is my concern,” he says. “So it’s finding this balance of like showing the love for Greenland and showing the amazing possibilities, but not getting too much too fast.”

Greenland’s buildup

Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark more than three times the size of Texas. Tourists travel by boat or small aircraft when venturing to different regions—virtually no roads connect towns or settlements.

Greenland decided to invest in airport infrastructure in 2018 as part of an effort to expand tourism and its role in the economy, which is largely dependent on fishing and subsidies from Denmark. In the coming years, airports in Ilulissat and Qaqortoq, areas known for their scenic fjords, will open.

One narrow-body flight, like what United plans, will generate $200,000 in spending, including hotels, tours and other purchases, Lauridsen says. He calls it a “very significant economic impact.”

In 2023, foreign tourism brought a total of over $270 million to Greenland’s economy, according to Visit Greenland, the tourism and marketing arm owned by the government. Expedition cruises visit the territory, as well as adventure tours.

United will fly twice weekly to Nuuk on its 737 MAX 8, which will seat 166 passengers, starting in June .

“We look for new destinations, we look for hot destinations and destinations, most importantly, we can make money in,” Andrew Nocella , United’s chief commercial officer, said in the company’s earnings call earlier in October.

On the runway

Greenland has looked to nearby Iceland to learn from its experiences with tourism, says Air Greenland Group CEO Jacob Nitter Sørensen. Tiny Iceland still has about seven times the population of its western neighbour.

Nuuk’s new airport will become the new trans-Atlantic hub for Air Greenland, the national carrier. It flies to 14 airports and 46 heliports across the territory.

“Of course, there are discussions about avoiding mass tourism. But right now, I think there is a natural limit in terms of the receiving capacity,” Nitter says.

Air Greenland doesn’t fly nonstop from the U.S. because there isn’t currently enough space to accommodate all travellers in hotels, Nitter says. Air Greenland is building a new hotel in Ilulissat to increase capacity when the airport opens.

Nuuk has just over 550 hotel rooms, according to government documents. A tourism analysis published by Visit Greenland predicts there could be a shortage in rooms beginning in 2027. Most U.S. visitors will stay four to 10 nights, according to traveler sentiment data from Visit Greenland.

As travel picks up, visitors should expect more changes. Officials expect to pass new legislation that would further regulate tourism in time for the 2025 season. Rules on zoning would give local communities the power to limit tourism when needed, says Naaja H. Nathanielsen, minister for business, trade, raw materials, justice and gender equality.

Areas in a so-called red zone would ban tour operators. In northern Greenland, traditional hunting takes place at certain times of year and requires silence, which doesn’t work with cruise ships coming in, Nathanielsen says.

Part of the proposal would require tour operators to be locally based to ensure they pay taxes in Greenland and so that tourists receive local knowledge of the culture. Nathanielsen also plans to introduce a proposal to govern cruise tourism to ensure more travelers stay and eat locally, rather than just walk around for a few hours and grab a cup of coffee, she says.

Public sentiment has remained in favour of tourism as visitor arrivals have increased, Nathanielsen says.

—Roshan Fernandez contributed to this article.

Is Your Colleague Earning More Than $200,000 a Year? Now You Can Find Out

As a salary transparency law takes effect in New York City, postings show pay ranges for jobs at companies from Amazon to PwC

The remote northern island wants more visitors: ‘It’s the rumbling before the herd is coming,’ one hotel manager says

Greenland’s buildup

On the runway