LinkedIn Corp. entered an agreement with the US Department of Labor to pay $1.8 million in back wages to resolve allegations of systemic, gender-based pay discrimination at LinkedIn facilities in San Francisco and Sunnyvale, California.

Linked said in a statement that while it entered into a settlement, it does not agree with the department’s findings.

“The agency claimed that between 2015 and 2017, we paid some female employees in California inconsistently with their peers,” according to the statement. “While we have agreed to settle this matter, we do not agree with the government’s claims; LinkedIn pays and has paid its employees fairly and equitably when comparing similar work.”

 The US Department of Labor announced the agreement on Tuesday, saying it found LinkedIn failed to provide equal pay to female workers in positions in its engineering and marketing job family groups in San Francisco and in its product job family groups in Sunnyvale. The incidents happened from March 1, 2015, through March 1, 2017, and were discovered during a compliance evaluation by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.

However, LinkedIn said its own equal pay analysis done in 2021 found that, globally, female employees earned $0.999 for every dollar earned by male employees. It also noted that in the US, employees of color earn a dollar for every dollar earned by white employees.

LinkedIn said it’s using several strategies to monitor pay equity, including:

• Using and function-based competitive market data to develop pay ranges and guidance to ensure fair and consistent pay across different groups within the same jobs, levels and regions.
• Annually reviewing employees’ pay compared to the ranges and to their peers, making adjustment as necessary.
• Regularly reviewing and evaluating pay practices to ensure employees are being compensated fairly.

The Department of Labor said LinkedIn agreed to several other conditions in the settlement along with paying the $1.8 million.

“In addition to recovering $1.8 million in back wages and interest for these workers, our agreement will ensure that LinkedIn better understands its obligations as a federal contractor and complies in the future,” said Regional Director Jane Suhr of the San Francisco Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.

As part of the settlement, LinkedIn has agreed to run a staff training program on nondiscrimination obligations in addition to evaluating its compensation policy for the next three years over gender neutrality and make salary adjustments, if otherwise.

The company has also agreed to revise its compensation policies and practices and along with monitoring and reporting to ensure compliance with federal contract obligations.