Update Applicable to:

All employers with 15 or more employees.

What happened?

As of February 16, 2023, a new bill – HB3129 – is quickly making its way through the Illinois House and, if passed and signed into law, would again amend the Illinois Equal Pay Act and significantly redefine how employers post jobs in Illinois.

What are the details?

The bill makes it unlawful for an employer with 15 or more employees to fail to include the pay scale for a job in any job posting in Illinois. The bill provides that if an employer with 15 or more employees relies on a third party to publish a job posting, the third party must include the pay scale in the job posting.

House Floor Amendment No. 1 to HB3129 expands the bounds of the HB3129 by imposing additional requirements for employers and providing clarification on ambiguity in HB3129:

• The amended version of the bill would make it unlawful for an employer with 15 or more employees to not only fail to include pay scale information, but also to fail to include benefits information regarding the job.
  • The amendment defines “pay scale and benefits” as “the wage or salary, or the wage or salary range, and a general description of the benefits and other compensation the employer reasonably expects to offer for the position.”
• The amended version of the bill would impose liability on the employer for a third party’s failure to include the pay scale and benefits information in a job posting on behalf of the employer.
• The amended version of the bill would require an employer to announce, post or otherwise make known all job opportunities to all current employees no later than the same day that the employer makes the job posting.
  • It also clarifies that HB3129 does not create any requirement for employers to make job postings.
• Moreover, the amended version of the bill would impose recordkeeping requirements, including a new obligation for employers to preserve records of the pay scale and benefits information for each position posted by the employer.

The amendment provides that each job posting that fails to be in compliance with the requirements of the Equal Pay Act would be considered separate violations.

For more information, please see the links below:

Bill: HB3129

Law Firm Article: Link

What do employers need to do?

Illinois employers should review the above links and begin revising their job postings in anticipation of the bill becoming law.

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