Henry Lloyd-Roberts, 17 September 2004
Business advice specialists Croner, have exposed the inherently sexist attitudes that pervades the UK recruitment process. Poll results released yesterday showed that over four-fifths of the HR professionals believe bosses automatically think twice before hiring women of a ‘childbearing age’.
The research was conducted in the wake of the controversial comments made by the outspoken member of the UK Independence Party, Godfrey Bloom. Ruminating on the various barriers that confront SMEs, he made this astute observation: “No small businessman with a brain in the right place would hire a lady of childbearing age.”
Quite apart from the obviousness crassness of such a remark, the more pressing worry is the majority of recruitment professionals appear to agree with him! Small businesses may believe they have a genuine business reason for discriminating on the grounds that they don’t have the resources to be able to absorb the costs of giving staff maternity leave. In the eyes of the law, however, they do not have a leg to stand on.
Richard Smith, HR expert at Croner, explains:
“It is unlawful sex discrimination to refuse to interview or employ a woman because she is, or is suspected to be, pregnant. This also applies to women of childbearing age, since this is not something related to her ability to do the job.”
From the perspective of businesses, the concern has to be that these issues could lead to a whole raft of claims from ex-employees, or even those who failed to get past the interview stage. Indeed, simply not giving an interview to a woman falling in this category could be enough to trigger a claim.
The most recent statistics show there are around ten million working women of childbearing age (16-49) in the UK workforce, with three and a half million aged 25-34, the most common age range for starting a family.
Clearly this is an issue businesses need to become more aware of.
“The law is very clear. It is unlawful sex discrimination to take into consideration factors relating to gender when recruiting staff,” said Smith.