BackThe Public Defender of Rights (Ombudsman), as the Czech equality body, responses for researching in the area of discrimination and his first research was focused on employment (job offering). Ombudsman analyzed about 12,000 job advertising released on one of the portals in April and found out that every 6th advertisement was discriminatory.
Discrimination on the basis of age was the most common (10.8 %) in examined adverts. In terms of age discrimination, advertisements in which employers explicitly require young employees or set maximum age limit were mostly considered discriminatory. The Ombudsman also criticized frequent cases of indirect discrimination by seeking an employee to join “a young team” or offering “benefit of young collective”. Also requirement of a long work experience of 15-20 years might be discriminatory.
Discrimination based on gender was also quite often (7%). According to Ombudsman, it is unquestionably unlawful, when an employer prefers either only men or only women. However, due to the Czech language, Ombudsman did not find discrimination in using generic masculine in name of the job position. On the other hand, he strongly recommended using both grammatical genders.
Research of the ombudsman also found discrimination on the grounds of nationality, disability or marital status, e.g. adverts preferring only domestic job-seekers or refusing disabled applicants. Compared to the frequency of age or sex discrimination, other discrimination was found relatively marginal in this research.
Since the research of the Ombudsman has been published, the topic is still widely discussed as in case of discriminatory advertisement, employers can face legal actions on suspicion of violating the anti-discriminatory law. Czech portals offering jobs and HR agencies have started to modify their advertisements to avoid discrimination in reaction to the Ombudsman’s objections.
To help employers to avoid discrimination announcing a job, operator of the largest portals together with Ombudsman created “The Guide of Fair-work-offering” launched on the 1st of August. It informs about fair and unfair formulations, explain the rules of equal treatment and offers model examples of fair adverts.
