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A new law that went into effect this week requires most California employers to disclose salaries on job listings.

The law affects every company with more than 15 employees looking to fill a job that could be performed from the state of California. It covers hourly and temporary work, all the way up to openings for highly-paid technology executives.

That means it’s now possible to know the salaries top tech companies pay their workers. For example:

Notably, these salary listings do not include any bonuses or equity grants, which many tech companies use to attract and retain employees.

California is the latest and biggest state to enact a pay transparency law, joining Colorado and New York City, which had previously passed similar policies. But more than 20% of Fortune 500 companies are based in California, including leaders in technology and media, and advocates hope that California’s new law will be the tipping point that turns posting salary information into standard practice.

In the U.S., there are now 13 cities and states which require employers to share salary information, covering about one in four workers in the U.S., according to Payscale, a software firm focusing on salary comparison.

California’s pay transparency law is intended to reduce gender and race pay gaps and help minorities and women better compete in the labor market. For example, people can compare their current pay with job listings with the same job title and see if they’re being underpaid.

Women earn about 83 cents for every dollar a man earns, according to the U.S. Census.

“You’re going to need a lot of different elements in place in order for men and women to get paid the same for the same amount of work and the same experience,” said Monique Limón, the California state senator who sponsored the new law. “And one of those is transparency around salary ranges.”

But the new disclosures under the law might not tell the whole story of what a job pays. Companies can choose to display wide pay ranges, violating the spirit of the law, and the law doesn’t require companies to reveal bonuses or equity compensation.

The law could also penalize ambitious workers who are gunning for more money because of their experience or skills, the California Chamber of Commerce said last year when opposing the bill. Some employers might be wary of posting pay to prevent bidding wars for top talent.

In a comment to CNBC, a Meta spokesperson said, “To ensure fairness and eliminate bias in our compensation systems, we regularly conduct pay equity analysis, and our latest analysis confirms that we continue to have pay equity across genders globally and by race in the US for people in similar jobs.” The firm also noted that it generally pays full-time employees in equity as well as cash.

Apple and Google did not immediately return requests for comment.

The new law

There are two primary components to California Senate Bill No. 1162, which was passed in September and went into effect on Jan. 1.

First is the pay transparency component on job listings, which applies to any company with more than 15 employees if the job could be done in California.

The second part requires companies with more than 100 employees to submit a pay data report to the state of California with detailed salary information broken down by race, sex, and job category. Companies have to provide a similar report on the federal level, but California now requires more details.

Employers are required to maintain detailed records of each job title and its wage history, and California’s Labor Commissioner can inspect those records. California can enforce the law through fines and can investigate violations. The reports won’t be published publicly under the new law.

California state Sen. Limón said that the bill helps narrow pay gaps by giving information to people so they can negotiate their pay better or determine if they are being underpaid for their experience and skills. It will also help the state check to make sure companies are following existing equal pay laws.

“The reason this is important is that we are not able to address problems that we cannot see,” Limón said.

Limón also hopes that the requirement will help California companies recruit the best talent and compete against other states which don’t require employers to post salaries. Ultimately, she says, helping making sure women and people of color are getting paid equally will help California’s economy.

Pay transparency laws could cause competition among companies that need to compete for the best talent. Some companies could even choose to post salary ranges on job listings where it’s not required.

“The consequence is not just for an individual, there are economic consequences for the state for people being underpaid,” Limón said. “That means that their earning power and how they’re able to contribute to this economy in California, whether it’s through a sales market, a housing market, through investment, is limited, because they are not being paid equitably.”

Loopholes

The new law doesn’t require employers to post total compensation, meaning that companies can leave out information about stock grants and bonuses, offering a highly incomplete picture for some highly paid jobs.

For high-paying jobs in the technology industry, equity compensation in the form of restricted stock units can make up a large percentage of an employee’s take-home pay. In industries like finance, bonuses make up a big portion of annual pay.

“Especially for tech employees, ultimately people want to know how much they’re getting in total compensation,” said Zuhayeer Musa, co-founder of Levels.fyi, a firm focused on recruiting and coaching for technology workers. “Sometimes stock compensation can be more than 50% of your actual total comp.”

Musa said that stock from big tech companies is basically liquid because it can be immediately sold on the stock market.

The new law also allows companies to provide wide ranges for pay, sometimes ranging over $100,000 or more between the lowest salary and the highest salary for a position. That seemingly violates the spirit of the law, but companies say that the ranges are realistic because base pay can vary widely based on skills, qualifications, experience, and location.

Companies may be open to hiring candidates with a range of experience — starting from entry-level to a more senior person — for a particular opening, said Lulu Seikaly, senior corporate attorney at Payscale.

Seikaly said she recommends clients should post job listings with a specific seniority level to narrow the potential pay range.

“When we talk to customers, and they ask what do you think is a good faith range, we tell them that’s a business decision, but the way we would do it, especially from the legal side, if you post by levels, that’s going to cover you a lot more than posting one wide range,” Seikaly said.

Some California companies are not listing salaries for jobs clearly intended to be performed in other states, but advocates hope California’s new law could spark more salary disclosures around the country. After all, a job listing with an explicit starting salary or range is likely to attract more candidates than one with unclear pay.

“I was telling some folks this morning that pay transparency right now is kind of the exception,” Seikaly said. “Give it five to 10 years, I think it’ll end up being the norm.”

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Meta’s big antitrust win, Salesforce’s deal closure, and iPhone’s popularity in China

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Meta wins FTC antitrust trial that focused on WhatsApp, Instagram

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Meta wins FTC antitrust trial that focused on WhatsApp, Instagram

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears at the Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Meta won its high-profile antitrust case against the Federal Trade Commission, which had accused the company of holding a monopoly in social networking.

In a memorandum opinion released Tuesday, Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., said the FTC failed to prove its argument. The case, initially filed by the FTC five years ago, centered on Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.

“Whether or not Meta enjoyed monopoly power in the past, though, the agency must show that it continues to hold such power now,” Boasberg said in the filing. “The Court’s verdict today determines that the FTC has not done so. A judgment so stating shall issue this day.”

Boasberg dismissed the case in 2021, saying the agency didn’t have enough evidence to prove “Facebook holds market power.” In August of that year, the FTC filed an amended complaint with more details about the company’s user numbers and metrics relative to competitors like Snapchat, the now-defunct Google+ social network and Myspace.

After reviewing the amendments, Boasberg in 2022 ruled that the case could proceed, saying the FTC had presented more details than before.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, former operating chief Sheryl Sandberg, Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom and other current and former Meta executives all testified in the trial, which began in April.

Meta shares were little changed on Tuesday. The stock is up about 2% for the year, badly underperforming broader indexes and most of its megacap tech peers.

“The Court’s decision today recognizes that Meta faces fierce competition,” the company said in a statement. “Our products are beneficial for people and businesses and exemplify American innovation and economic growth. We look forward to continuing to partner with the Administration and to invest in America.” 

The FTC didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.  

The ruling comes a little over two months after Google avoided the harshest possible penalty from an antitrust case it lost last year. While Google was found to hold an illegal monopoly in its core market of internet search, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta decided the company would not be forced to sell its Chrome browser, bucking the Department of Justice’s request. Google was, however, ordered to loosen its hold on search data.

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In the Meta case, the FTC claimed the company shouldn’t have been allowed to buy Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, and the agency called for those units to be divested. The commission also alleged that there were no major alternatives for apps like Facebook and Instagram that people use to communicate with friends and family in a online, social space.

However, a major challenge for the FTC, according to the judge, was in proving that Meta is breaking antitrust law today, not years ago when the primary use of social networks was very different and based on sharing other kinds of content.

“To win the permanent injunction that it seeks here, the FTC must prove a current or imminent legal violation,” he wrote.

Boasberg ultimately sided with Meta’s argument that the technology industry has evolved since the early days of Facebook, and the company now faces a wide variety of competitors like TikTok.

“While each of Meta’s empirical showings can be quibbled with, they all tell a consistent story: people treat TikTok and YouTube as substitutes for Facebook and Instagram, and the amount of competitive overlap is economically important,” Boasberg wrote. “Against that unmistakable pattern, the FTC offers no empirical evidence of substitution whatsoever.”

Big changes in social

Much of Judge Boasberg’s conclusion was built on the transformation that’s taken place in the social media market in recent years and Meta’s changing position within it. User trends have moved heavily in the direction of video, where TikTok and YouTube have massive user bases and huge network effects.

“The most-used part of Meta’s apps is thus indistinguishable from the offerings on TikTok and YouTube,” Boasberg wrote.

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Waymo says it will launch in more Texas and Florida cities in 2026

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Waymo says it will launch in more Texas and Florida cities in 2026

A Waymo autonomous self-driving Jaguar taxi drives along a street on March 14, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.

Mario Tama | Getty Images

Waymo on Tuesday said it will bring its robotaxi service to new cities in Texas and Florida in 2026.

The Alphabet-owned company said it plans to start operating its vehicles with no human driver assistants in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Miami and Orlando in the coming weeks before opening service in those markets to the public next year, the company said in a blog.

“Waymo has entered a new phase of commercial scale, doubling the number of cities we operate without a human specialist in the car,” Waymo Chief Product Officer Saswat Panigrahi said in an emailed statement Tuesday.

Waymo had previously announced plans to launch its robotaxi service in Dallas and Miami in 2026, but Tuesday was the first time the company said it planned to launch service next year in the other cities. Waymo will first offer fully autonomous trips to its employees in those markets, a spokesperson said.

The company has been gearing up to expand its paid robotaxis service in 2026. The company previously announced plans to expand to Detroit, Las Vegas, Nashville, San Diego, Washington, D.C., and London in 2026.

Waymo has also begun testing vehicles in New York City and Tokyo.

Last week, Waymo began offering freeway routes in the San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles markets. The Google sister company will gradually extend freeway trips to more riders and locations over time.

Already, Waymo operates its paid robotaxi service in Austin, San Francisco, Phoenix, Atlanta and Los Angeles. The company has provided more than 10 million paid rides since first launching in 2020, the company said in May.

Waymo’s Florida and Texas expansion announcement comes the same day that Amazon-owned Zoox began allowing select San Francisco users to hail its driverless vehicles. San Francisco is the second market where Zoox now offers a free service, after its launch in Las Vegas in September. Zoox has deployed a fleet of 50 robotaxis between San Francisco and Las Vegas, the company told CNBC in September.

WATCH: Waymo launches paid robotaxi rides on freeways

Watch: Waymo launches paid robotaxi rides on freeways

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