Employers ‘could be breaking discrimination employment law’

Posted 08/03/2010

Business owners could be putting themselves at risk of breaching employment law by discriminating against potential candidates based on ethnicity and other factors.

New research by Milkround.com found that three-fifths of students and recent graduates feel as though they have been discriminated against at work, with 37 per cent of females and 45 per cent of males citing their ethnicity as the problem.

A further 12 per cent of men and 20 per cent of women said they had been singled out for unfavourable treatment as a result of their gender.

Mike Barnard, spokesperson for Milkround.com, said it is vital that employers organise a proper equal opportunities policy.

“Depressingly, students and graduates are starting their careers with a view discrimination is rife in the workplace,” he pointed out.

Employers who do not act to stop discrimination, harassment and bullying by staff may be breaking employment law by breaching the 1976 Race Relations Act and could face prosecution or claims for compensation.