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Meta job listing discrimination study overview:
- Who: Real Women in Trucking conducted a study of discrimination in Facebook job ads.
- What: The group claims Facebook’s algorithm does not show job ads to enough women or residents older than 55 years.
- Where: The complaint was made to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Washington, D.C.
A group that represents women in the trucking industry issued a formal complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to investigate Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms, regarding “systemic gender and age discrimination in advertising jobs on Facebook.”
Real Women in Trucking calls the discrimination “dramatic,” claiming in some cases employers received applications from Facebook users who are over 99% male and 99% younger than 55 years old even when they directed Facebook to send job ads to people of all genders and ages.
The complaint states that women make up over 54% of Facebook users and claims that Meta, in denying equal opportunity to women and older people, is “reinforcing and perpetuating harmful stereotypes.”
Meta complaint states discrimination ‘worse than 1960s’
In one of the 75 ads Real Women in Trucking noted in its complaint, Facebook disseminated a trucking ad to 94% men and 5% women.
“Facebook’s algorithm regularly acts like recruiters in the 1960s (and even later), who identified as ‘Male’ or ‘Female’ based on gender stereotypes or indicated their preferences to hire younger workers,” the complaint states. “Facebook takes this type of discrimination to the next level. When Facebook’s algorithm decides that a job is a ‘male’ job, it delivers the ads almost entirely to men, and when the algorithm decides that a job is a ‘female’ job, it delivers the ads almost entirely to women.
“… When this happens, women and older workers in 2022 are placed in a worse position than their counterparts in the 1960s because they don’t even have an opportunity to see the advertisement.”
The Real Women in Trucking complaint provides background on how the government responds to the digital age of employee recruitment. In 2019, the EEOC declared that using gender or age algorithms to send job alerts violates discrimination laws, the complaint alleges.
The organization looks to represent “millions of women and older people who have been denied equal employment opportunity” because Meta’s algorithm discriminates when distributing job ads.
It seeks injunctive relief and damages under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and equivalent state and local statutes.
In related news, a class action lawsuit filed in May accuses Meta of citizenship bias in its hiring practices.
What do you think of the Real Women in Trucking complaint? Let us know in the comments!
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