
2023 HR Statistics: Job Search, Hiring, Recruiting & Interviews
The definitive list of human resource statistics and research for 2023. See data on resumes, job interviews as well as hiring and recruiting.
Joy, shame, stress. Nothing can cause so many emotions the way money does. We asked 1000 Americans how much they’re willing to share about their finances.
That must have cost a fortune, how can you afford that?!
Just out of curiosity… What’s your credit score?
Cringe overload, right?
No wonder.
Money, quite universally, is considered a taboo subject. Heck, studies have shown that almost 60% of Americans would rather reveal their exact weight than say how much money they have in their savings accounts.
But what if it’s your family that want to talk $$$ with you? What about your life partner? Close friends? Is a relaxed, honest conversation about our financial situation even possible? That’s what we decided to find out.
We’ve asked over 1000 Americans some difficult money questions—do they lie about their salaries? Would they be okay discussing debts? What about revealing mortgages? Read on to see what we discovered.
Remember that time you were little and asked your parents how much they earned? They lectured you about how inappropriate that was, didn’t they?
Even today, Americans don’t feel overly comfortable discussing finances with their close ones. Only 50% of respondents said they’d be okay with sharing their exact salary with their family members. It’s harder yet to talk about debts—43% would feel uncomfortable talking with their family members about how much money they owe.
Interestingly, those percentages are much lower when your “life partner” is just a hypothetical scenario, not your reality:
Similarly, only 19% of people in a relationship, compared to 29% of single people channel their inner Kanye and holler “We want prenup!” (Men are 13% more likely to do so.)
Why the difference? Well, there are two reasonable explanations—
Either we think we really value our financial privacy before getting into a formal relationship but, once we do, we realize it’s almost impossible to be dishonest about money. Or—people who, by nature, are less likely to open up about their earnings and debts are also less likely to find someone long-term.
What about a hypothetical date? How bad would it be to talk about your annual income?
Turns out, talking about your income (33%) is only lightly easier than talking about previous sex partners (30%). For most (37%) both topics are equally cringe-y.
Alright, in our little financial integrity test, so far we’ve established the good and the bad. Time for the ugly—
You know the old joke:
Always borrow money from a pessimist. They’ll never expect it back.
Roughly a third of Americans say they lied to their family members about salary, too. Interestingly, there’s a very significant generational difference in this area:
When it comes to borrowing money and never giving it back… Well, the data is clearly contradictory. 70% of Americans claim they’ve never skipped paying back a loan, however, 72% say they have, at least once, lent someone money and never gotten it back.
Hate to say it: I’m calling serious cognitive bias! (Illusory superiority, to be precise, just like in that famous driving abilities self-assessment paradox: a vast majority of drivers think their driving skills are above average which just isn’t possible.)
Bottom line: 41% of Americans would like to know the exact pay of their coworkers yet only 22% would feel comfortable disclosing such information about themselves.
Well. Curiosity killed the cat. But if you’re one of those curious ones, depending on where you live, maybe all you have to do is ask:
17 out of US’ 50 states have adopted specific regulations enabling employees to enquire about their coworkers’ pay. In most of the other ones, employers might lawfully prevent workers from obtaining information about the exact pay policy of the company.
As of now, only 3 (sic!) multi-state companies have adopted full salary transparency policies: Whole Foods, SumAll, and Buffer.
Because of how rare a phenomenon this is, there’s no comprehensive research on how pay transparency impacts employees. One interesting study, though, suggested that in companies where salaries are transparent, new employees have a much clearer idea about who of their peers to ask for on-the-job assistance when needed.
Alright, let us be transparent for a while. As a career advice website, we’re most interested in your opinion about money in your work life:
Let us know in the comments!
For this study, we collected answers from 1,011 American respondents via Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Respondents consisted of 56% females and 44% males. 9% of respondents were 24 or younger, 45% aged 25–38, 29% aged 39–58, and 17% 59 or older. Given the gender and age makeup of our large sample, the study can be generalized to the entire population.
This self-report study investigated Americans’ habits related to speaking about their personal finances. Respondents were asked 20 scale-based questions regarding whether or not they agree with statements about money and money politics amongst their life partners, family members, friends, and coworkers.
As experience is subjective, we understand that some participants and their answers might be affected by recency, attribution, exaggeration, self-selection, non-response or voluntary response bias.
Some questions and responses have been rephrased or condensed for clarity and ease of understanding for readers. In some cases, the percentages presented may not add up to 100 percent; depending on the case, this is either due to rounding or due to responses of “neither/uncertain/unknown” not being presented.
Feel free to share our study! The graphics and content found here are available for noncommercial reuse. Just make sure to link back to this page to give the authors proper credit.
Zety’s career blog has taught thousands of readers how to format cover letters, provided cover letter templates and over free resume templates, and even helped to prepare for situational job interviews.
This article has been reviewed by our editorial team to make sure it follows Zety's editorial guidelines. We’re committed to sharing our expertise and giving you trustworthy career advice tailored to your needs. High-quality content is what brings over 40 million readers to our site every year. But we don't stop there. Our team conducts original research to understand the job market better, and we pride ourselves on being quoted by top universities and prime media outlets from around the world.
The definitive list of human resource statistics and research for 2023. See data on resumes, job interviews as well as hiring and recruiting.
You want to know which exact skills to put on a resume to impress the recruiter? Give this article a read to find the know-how with a list of skills for your resume.
Career regret is common, but you don't have to make the same mistakes others have made. Learn what most people regret and avoid these bad career decisions. Otherwise, you'll live with them for the rest of your professional life.