LinkedIn Agreed to Pay $1.8 Million Over Alleged Pay Discrimination

The career-networking service LinkedIn has agreed to pay $1.8 million in lower back wages to women workers to settle a pay discrimination criticism introduced with the aid of using US labor investigators.

The US Labour Department announced that it has reached a settlement agreement with LinkedIn to address allegations of "systematic and gender-based wage discrimination" that women in equal positions pay less than men.

The settlement involved nearly 700 women who worked in engineering, product, or marketing roles in the company's San Francisco and Sunnyvale, California offices between 2015 and 2017. This covers the period before and after Microsoft's acquisition of LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in 2016.

The settlement agreement argues that LinkedIn denies wage discrimination and that its statistical model does not detect wage inequality. The government said its own analysis found significant wage inequality, even after checking for "legitimate explanatory factors."

Authorities said the case was triggered by regular assessments by the Federal Contract Compliance Program Authority. Federal law prohibits discriminatory practices by companies that have contracts with the federal government.