Prospective Employers Will Know Your Current Income

I thought my income was no one elses business but my own.
Oh well, so much for privacy.

Firm compiles info on your job history, pay for companies that need to check on you

If you're like most workers, the information on your salary, job title and work history is something you guard closely.

But each time you collect your paycheck, there's a good chance your employer is reporting your information to a company called the Work Number, which compiles the information in a database and then charges other companies for access to it for employment and income verification or when a person applies for a loan.

"Our service provides a faster, more secure way [for verification] to be done than to do it manually," said Janet Ford, vice president at the Work Number, which is owned by St. Louis-based TALX Corp. TALX provides employment verification and related human resource and payroll services to more than 9,000 clients in the U.S., including 385 companies in the Fortune 500.

TALX, in turn, is owned by Equifax, one of the three national credit bureaus.

Full Article Here

From The Work Number web site.

The Work Number® is America’s leader in automated employment and income verifications. More than 1,500 employers outsource the verification process to TALX, including more than half of the Fortune 500. We help our clients’ employees provide proof of employment or income when buying a home, applying for a job or seeking financial aid.