Economy Likely Culprit for Increased Racial Discrimination Claims at Work
According to LegalMatch.com consumers looking for employment legal help, the following jobs account for the most racial discrimination claims in the past two years, in order of frequency:
- Professional (law, accounting, architecture, etc.)
- Education
- Construction
- High Technology
- Retail
- Transportation
- Manufacturing
- Government
Only “retail” and “professional” place in the top 14 jobs by number of employed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retail actually tops the BLS’s list. Why the discrepancy?
In 2007 there were over 30,000 racial discrimination claims filed at the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. People on the human resources side of the equation were startled at the massive increase-in most cases plus 10%-of new cases compared to the previous year.
Instead of looking at jobs sorting people by how many are employed, the place to look is how many are unemployed. Most discrimination claims, after all, begin after someone has been let go. The 8 jobs listed above are a veritable who’s who of the hardest hit jobs in the economy since 2007. Almost every job on the list, other than government, has lost near or above half a million workers in the past year according to the BLS.
No surprise, then, that these jobs will have a large amount of disgruntled former employees claiming discrimination. Their cases may be warranted too, but all signs point to the massive layoffs of late as the key culprit for rising employment discrimination claims.
Comments
I think that perhaps the psychological reality exists among minority races that now we have a president in office who is from African American origins, that their rights may in fact be better served in today’s social climate. It could very well be possible that the claims are valid, but more promise of justice exists in the mind of the plaintiff. Previous action may well have seemed futile in the mind of the plaintiff.