New research has revealed that over a third of younger workers believe they have experienced discrimination during a hiring process.
A national survey of over 2,000 UK working adults commissioned by ethical AI hiring experts, Applied, found that 37% of workers aged 25-34, and 36% of workers aged 16-24 believe they have experienced bias at some point during a recruitment process.
Overall, 1 in 5 (22%) Brits said they had encountered bias during a hiring process at least once.
When asked what they believed was behind the discrimination, the top reasons cited by 16-24 year olds were:
Age (cited by 21% of respondents)
Ethnicity (cited by 19% of respondents)
Gender (cited by 15% of respondents)
Weight (cited by 15% of respondents)
Hair colour (cited by 15% of respondents)
For workers aged 25-34, ethnicity and gender were also among the top 5 reasons given. However, perceived accent bias replaced age bias as the top reason for discrimination among this cohort:
Accent (cited by 21% of respondents)
Ethnicity (cited by 21% of respondents)
Gender (cited by 20% of respondents)
Class (cited by 14% of respondents)
Height (cited by 14% of respondents)
Separate research has found that over a third (36%) of hiring managers admit they are biased against Gen Z candidates (those born between 1997 – 2012 who are currently aged 12 – 27).
The findings come as 63% of businesses in London and the South East are suffering from a lack of qualified workers, according to research by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) and the Open University.
Older workers least likely to believe they’ve faced hiring bias
According to this latest survey from Applied, older workers are least likely to believe they’ve faced discrimination during a hiring process. Only 12% of workers aged 55+ who were surveyed claimed to have experienced bias while trying to land a new role.
However, older workers were twice as likely to claim that ageism was the reason behind the discrimination they felt. Over half (50%) of workers aged 55+ who reportedly experienced discrimination during a hiring process said their age was to blame, compared to just 26% of workers on average across all age demographics.
When asked to anonymously share details of their experience, one respondent who was “looking for a job at 65 years old” said that they “have more chance of winning the lottery”.
In response to the findings, Khyati Sundaram, CEO of ethical AI hiring experts Applied, comments:
“It’s deeply sad but wholly unsurprising that our research has found that more than a third of younger workers believe they have experienced discrimination during a hiring process. All humans hold biases, whether they’re conscious of them or not. Hiring managers are no exception. Traditional hiring practices are riddled with opportunities for these biases – around age, gender, race and much more – to influence our decisions. Workers are suffering the consequences and they are aware of it.
“Employers must focus on removing opportunities for biases to interfere in the hiring process. To do this, they should anonymise applications, assess candidates using skills tests, and only use trustworthy AI models which have been trained on bias-free data sets. This way, candidates are all given an equal opportunity to show they have what it takes to succeed in roles, and hiring managers can find the person with the best skills for the job – irrelevant details, like their age, don’t come into it.”
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