In the everchanging landscape of international business, it's important to keep informed on upcoming changes and forecasts to payroll worldwide.
This week, we focus in on payroll news in the United States of America regarding pay range transparency in job postings, the concerns of pension freezing for expats from the United Kingdom, and Japan's recent efforts to reduce the need to choose between Work OR Family.
US Payroll
NYC law demands transparent salary ranges be present on job postings
New York City’s highly criticized Pay Transparency Bill is set to come into enforcement on May 15th, 2022. In this bill, companies will be required to share the minimum and maximum salaries accessible to candidates.
Offering pay transparency is being criticized as being an over-step by the government, as well as praised as an action to improve in wage discrimination among marginalized groups in the workforce.
This bill was passed in NYC with a 41-7 vote in the city council in mid-December and was officially put into law January 15th. Salary transparency already exists as statutes in jurisdictions in several US states.
United Kingdom Payroll
British Expats speak out on devastating pension freezing
British Expats living abroad have been seeing pension amounts being capped at a certain amount depending on where they live. With the undeniable impact of COVID-19 on the economy and the projections of the coming years and increased inflation, many pensioners are concerned of what that means for them as they grow further away from a “working age”.
The End Frozen Pensions Campaign advocates for the 500,000 Britons affected by Frozen Pensions. The UK’s state pension rates tend to increase during most years, however, for those living in deemed “frozen countries” abroad, this is not the case.
“A pensioner aged 90 who has lived in a ‘frozen country’ for the duration of their retirement will receive a state pension of just £43.60 (appx. $50) per week. If they had continued to live in the UK they would be receiving £137.60 (appx. $158).
There is concern that this freeze is forcing aged pensioners to take on unnecessary hardship to uproot their lives to move back to the UK just to be able to afford care, putting a great deal of stress on the already strained NHS and social care systems.
Japan Payroll
Work-Life Balance improvements for Parents in new Labor Revisions
The Child and Family Member Care Leave Act underwent some recent revisions to policies regarding Paternity leave for Japanese families. These changes hope to ease public pressures to choose between family OR work.
These revisions are addressing the cost and labor involved in marriage, childbearing and rearing, and the impact it has had on the declining birthrate, as well as the projected impacts on the future of the labor force population.
The Paternity leave revisions hope to make leave more accessible to fathers, including 4 weeks of leave upon the birth of a child, as well as allowing for flexible scheduling of said leave, as well as measures to ensure employers are informing their employees of their rights to other forms of parental leave.
Resources:
US Payroll
UK Payroll
Japan Payroll
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/littler-global-guide-japan-q4-2021-4631909/ https://www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/koyoukintou/pamphlet/dl/02_en.pdf
Discrimination in society today