“Discrimination in the labour market already starts with the formulation of a job advert. Only 10 % of companies in the Netherlands work from an inclusive company culture where people actively try to hire outside of their socio-economic bubbles”, This was one of the observations that the WIDE+ team shared during the internal meeting of FINDHR.
Last week, Paksy Plackis-Cheng, founder of Impactmania & researcher/trainer for the FINDHR project on behalf of WIDE+, and Gea Meijers, general coordinator of WIDE+, participated in its third annual meeting. FINDHR is a European consortium that aims to reduce intersectional discrimination resulting from bias in Artificial Intelligence tools used in hiring processes. WIDE+ is one of the partners.
The project entered its last and final year; thus participants reflected on how to increase awareness of solutions found during the project. WIDE+ will have a responsibility to help facilitate the outreach to policy makers at EU level. Currently WIDE+ members and partners are completing the report of the (Feminist) Participatory Action Research (PAR) Sessions held with over 160 people in 7 countries.
Highlighting examples from the different countries, Paksy Plackis-Cheng presented a red thread that has come from people that are underrepresented in the labour market: discrimination happens throughout the hiring process and beyond with people being fired shortly after hiring. Stereotypes around age, gender and ethnicity lead to multiple forms of discrimination in which algorithms create new forms of discrimination. Those that can apply through online applications are encouraged to “fit the box”, instead of allowing all their competences to shine.