Pay equity continues to be one of the most significant workforce issues facing employers today. Pay equity laws aim to increase transparency into employers’ pay practices – with the ultimate goal of ensuring that employees are paid fairly regardless of demographic factors including race and gender. However, they may also require employers to release sensitive, propriety information about internal pay practices – which arguably constitute trade secrets – potentially compromising employers’ ability to remain competitive in hiring and retaining top talent. See, e.g., In re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litig., No. 11-cv-02509, 2013 WL 163779, at *2, 5 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 15, 2013) (explaining that trade secrets include “sources of business information that might harm a litigant’s competitive standing,” including “confidential information regarding . . . recruitment strategies, policies, and procedures, [and] quantitative data concerning those topics”).
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