Hiring Process

Discrimination During the Hiring Process
Multiple studies show that immigrants, for similar education levels and age, experience worse outcomes during the recruitment process than white native-born individuals (OECD, 2013). Difficulties faced by immigrants to integrate society and more specifically the job market can be explained by many reasons. Among others, immigrants often face discrimination when looking to integrate the labour market because they have acquired their work experience and degrees and qualifications, most often than not, in a context different from that of their host country. Moreover, their degrees and experience might have been acquired in a different language than the official language of their new country (OECD, 2013).

Employers might see hiring native-born individuals instead of immigrants as an opportunity to save extra-time that could be necessary for them to accommodate to the new workplace. Also, employers could decide to hire native-born individuals as a way to avoid intergroup conflict and discrimination between employees (Smith et al., 2009). In order to measure the extent of discrimination in the recruitment process, a growing number of research are conducted by sending fictitious CVs to companies including only the name and nationality or country of origin of the applicant as a way to indicate their immigrant background (OECD, 2013). The findings show that it is common for both immigrants and their children to be forced to send as much as two times more applications than individuals without an apparent immigration background to receive an invitation for a job interview (OECD, 2013). Surprisingly, children of immigrants also show worse job market outcomes than children from white native-born families, even if both groups share similar qualifications of high-level (OECD, 2013). This difference could be attributable to factors such as the size of social networks, concentration of immigrant populations in specific geographical areas, or specific personal characteristics, including motivation (OECD, 2013). The discrepancies in labour market outcomes aforementioned can represent “an economic loss to the host country,” as well as affect social cohesion and immigrants’ motivation to spend money into higher education (OECD, 2013). Studies also reveal than “men tend to be more affected by discriminatory practices than women” (OECD, 2013). Even if it is difficult to compare levels of discrimination between countries, it has been shown that this trend especially affects native-born children of immigrant families part of visible minorities (OECD, 2013). Among others, this could be explained by moral panics constructed by mass media (Tanner, 2015). Indeed, using exaggeration and sensationalization, mass media often defines certain events or groups of people as threat to society and stereotypes them, leading to the creation of fears (Tanner, 2015). Considering that this process especially happens with events involving criminal activities and teenagers, the combined impact of mass media’s sensationalization with prejudices already existing in society could be one of the explanations for the high rates of discrimination in the hiring process experienced by youth immigrants part of visible minorities (Tanner, 2015).
Discrimination in the Workplace
Not only does discrimination affects employment accessibility, but it also has an impact passed the hiring process, in the workplace (OECD, 2013).

Popular belief would be that workplace discrimination would not be as much of an issue as discrimination during the recruitment process since work experience would certify the productivity of immigrant employees. It is true that more studies have reported cases of discrimination during the hiring process (OECD, 2013). However, that could be explained in part by the fact that it easier to assess discrimination during recruitment than after hiring (OECD, 2013). One example of discrimination in the workplace is seen in Canada’s health system. Indeed, despite efforts to increase acceptance of workers from all ethnic backgrounds in the field, non-Hispanic black physicians still report being victim of discrimination in their workplace, regardless of other factors that could incite discrimination such as gender, age, geographical location, or years in practice (Smith et al., 2009). These results match those from other national surveys conducted in the 1990s that demonstrated difficulties faced by employers from different fields to increase workplace diversity, alleviate intergroup conflict, and improve communication (Smith et al., 2009). Studies have identified four core elements for employers to successfully increase diversity and increase its acceptance in the workplace: recruiting more individuals part of visible minorities into businesses, promoting these individuals within the organizations, learning about the opinion and experience of employees in regards to the workplace climate, and highlighting the importance of diversity with all employees of the organizations (Smith et al., 2009). Increasing acceptance of diversity is especially important since discrimination has been reported not only in the healthcare system, but also in the education system and in the housing market (OECD,

2013).
Effectiveness of the Employment Equity Act
It appears obvious that visible minorities employees in companies bonded to enforce the Employment Equity Act are still underrepresented. Indeed, proportion of immigrants compared to total employment is only about three-quarters of what it should be if full equity was to be achieved to represent population demographics (Jain & Lawler, 2004). This statistic also differs depending of occupations. Studies show many fields where percentage of visible minorities is low or non-existent (Jain & Lawler, 2004). If total enforcement of the Employment Equity Act is become a goal in 2017, it appears clear that vigorous efforts will be required to increase diversity and its acceptance both during the hiring process and afterwards in the workplace. Particular attention should be paid on sensitizing top management about the importance of creating a climate of tolerance and having a hiring staff trained to fully enforce the Employment Equity Act (Jain & Lawyer, 2004).