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.