Burnham says employers will be legally required to publish salaries in job adverts

The government said the change would help jobseekers, particularly those applying for their first job, and could help prevent pay discrimination. “Whether you're a young person starting out or a parent trying to support your family, you should know what a job pays before spending your time and effort applying for it. That's why we will make it a legal requirement for all employers to say what you pay,” he said. The prime minister also called for “businesses to open more doors and give young people the experience and confidence to take that first step into the world of work”.

The announcement follows a Cabinet Office consultation into pay and reducing discrimination over the summer, which the government said drew "overwhelming support", with 94% of respondents backing greater transparency. It comes a week after the Equality and Human Rights Commission said employees should legally be able to find out what their colleagues are earning; the commission also recommended that employers be required to respond to questionnaires about colleagues' pay and be prevented from asking about current salary when making an offer. The move is part of government efforts to reduce the nearly one million young people not in education, employment or training, known as "Neet", ahead of the final report of the Milburn Review into youth inactivity, which is due in the coming weeks.

The proposals mirror measures being introduced in the European Union, where employers must disclose the initial pay or range for new roles. The government said publishing salary details upfront could "expose unjustified differences in pay, give workers greater confidence to challenge discrimination and prevent disagreements over pay escalating into disputes". It said further details on what information will be required and how the legislation will be enforced would be set out "in due course".

The move was welcomed by TUC general secretary Paul Nowak, who said anyone searching for a job knows “how frustrating it is to read 'competitive salary' instead of just saying how much they'll be paid”. He said it was “absolutely right that the Government clamp down on this disrespectful practice”, and called for employers also to be required to list flexible working options in every posting. Penny East, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, said salary secrecy had “put women at a disadvantage”, and requiring publication was “a significant step towards making work fairer for women and tackling the gender pay gap”. Nishi Mayor of the Youth Futures Foundation said clear pay information could help young people make informed decisions and could mean more applications from more suitable candidates.

However, CIPD chief executive Neil Carberry said that while in principle giving salary details was "a good thing", in practice it was "more complicated". "There isn't always a single fixed figure, and employers will want to set pay based on a candidate's skills, experience and potential," he said, arguing that drafting job adverts is "best left to good employer practice rather than government regulation".

According to jobs site Adzuna, 51% of adverts on its site in September included salary information, but the proportion has been falling in recent years. Co-founder Andrew Hunter said being open about pay "should be the norm, not the exception", adding that employers who put a salary on an advert "attract more applicants, and better-suited ones". CIPD research found 41% of employers always included salary information in job adverts, while around 27% never did.

The government's announcement comes amid criticism of its handling of the jobs market: after last week’s Budget, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch claimed “jobs have been destroyed by Labour”, while Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said a lack of economic growth was behind a lack of jobs and opportunity, and said British business was being held back above all by “the terrible damage of the Conservative Brexit deal”. Vacancies fell by an estimated 21,000 to 691,000 in the three months to September, according to the Office for National Statistics.