The New Jersey pay and benefits transparency law went into effect on June 1, 2025, but administrative regulations have not yet been published. What’s an employer to do?
Until we get more formal guidance, you can check the FAQs recently posted by the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, found here. Among the highlights:
Must an employer have an employee in New Jersey to be covered by the Pay Transparency law?
No. Under the Pay Transparency law, an employer may still be covered if it has 10 or more employees over 20 calendar weeks, whether those employees work inside or outside of New Jersey. However, if none of the employer’s employees work inside New Jersey, the employer will only be covered if it does business in New Jersey or takes applications for employment within New Jersey.
Are nationwide job postings included under the Pay Transparency law?
It depends. If the employer has the minimum number of employees to be covered by the Pay Transparency law and the employer does business, employs persons, or takes applications for employment within New Jersey, then yes, its job postings must comply with the law, even if the employer is advertising nationally or accepting applications from anywhere in the country.
And, did you know? Not only do you have to let external applicants know what their pay and benefits will be, you also have to let your current employees know about openings and promotions:
“An employer must use reasonable efforts to make all current employees in its affected departments aware of promotion opportunities, whether those opportunities are advertised internally within the employer or externally on internet-based advertisements, postings, printed flyers, or other similar advertisements. Any promotion for a current employee that is awarded on the basis of years of experience or performance shall not be subject to the notification requirements.”
And those italics are from NJ LWD, not me!
