Dive Brief:
- Certain New Jersey staffing agencies face allegations that they continue to discriminate against candidates based on race and socio-economic factors in a NJ Advance Media special report. Kelly Heyboer, investigative reporter for NJ.com says that dozens of lawsuits have been filed around the US, and in NJ, because of hiring practices that include weeding out candidates who are "from the ghetto" or were "thugs".
- A 2014 lawsuit was filed by Latisha DeSota who claimed a supervisor at a NJ-headquartered staffing firm advised her to avoid hiring African-Americans. In her lawsuit, DeSota claimed that African-American candidates were passed over or turned away before completing applications for warehouse positions.
- Elaine Balady, former president of the New Jersey Staffing Alliance, says that there were never any issues with its 140 member agencies concerning discriminatory hiring practices. The EEOC continues to investigate claims in NJ and other states where complaints have been filed.
Dive Insight:
The report featured on NJ.com highlights the current state of recruitment in some staffing agencies, where people may be poorly trained and driven purely by financial incentives to make their clients happy.
Many temporary staffing firms are operated by skilled recruitment teams that provide career opportunities to millions of hard-working Americans. But this investigative effort and the information it revealed should be a reminder for all recruiters to be mindful of potential discriminatory attitudes and behaviors that negatively impact the recruitment market.
Such behaviors may be one reason that anti-bias technology has taken hold in the recruiting space, though many are still concerned about balancing the human side of recruitment with the increasing power of tech.
