They’re asking so they can report to the Department of Labor – Ive seen threads on this question where recruiters replied, and they said when done properly that info is kept totally seperate and your hiring manager never sees this info. And even if they could see it, it would probably only confirm what they can guess/see from your name or meeting you.
It’s asked so the government can see if there’s a systematic discrepancy between who gets interviewed and who gets hired. Can’t prove employment discrimination without knowing who applied.
I could be way off track, but maybe companies get incentives for achieving specific ethnicity, age, etc. quotas? “If our office in a predominantly A race neighborhood hires X amount of B race people, then we’ll reward them for making us appear diversified”
I’m just shooting my shot here, could be wrong, but interesting thought
Well before 2025 it was for DEI, diversity etc to show there’s no discrimination. Some places would get additional funding and the companies could put it on their website talking about cultural diversity etc etc.
Pretty soon I’m sure they’ll be taking it off applications because there won’t be any benefits.
Companies are typically required to gather this data, for the purposes of producing government statistics and subsequent auditing. It’s very hard to monitor or prevent discrimination based on demographic characteristics if there’s no information about the demographic characteristics of the workforce.
They use that information to prevent discrimination.
For example, if the statistics show that they’ve interviewed a fairly even mixture of men and women, but only seem to hire men, that woul be a sign that there’s discrimination happening.
Without those statistics it’s hard to prove anything, because they can just claim that they didn’t get any applicants from whichever group you’re talking about.
The information isn’t supposed to be accessible to the person who actually decides who gets hired.
Comments
I am not from the US but i never got asked for my race and disability status but i did get asked for my gender
So they can audit it after. It goes to different departments. If all the ones of a class get binned that’s sus.
They’re asking so they can report to the Department of Labor – Ive seen threads on this question where recruiters replied, and they said when done properly that info is kept totally seperate and your hiring manager never sees this info. And even if they could see it, it would probably only confirm what they can guess/see from your name or meeting you.
It’s asked so the government can see if there’s a systematic discrepancy between who gets interviewed and who gets hired. Can’t prove employment discrimination without knowing who applied.
I could be way off track, but maybe companies get incentives for achieving specific ethnicity, age, etc. quotas? “If our office in a predominantly A race neighborhood hires X amount of B race people, then we’ll reward them for making us appear diversified”
I’m just shooting my shot here, could be wrong, but interesting thought
[removed]
Well before 2025 it was for DEI, diversity etc to show there’s no discrimination. Some places would get additional funding and the companies could put it on their website talking about cultural diversity etc etc.
Pretty soon I’m sure they’ll be taking it off applications because there won’t be any benefits.
Companies are typically required to gather this data, for the purposes of producing government statistics and subsequent auditing. It’s very hard to monitor or prevent discrimination based on demographic characteristics if there’s no information about the demographic characteristics of the workforce.
It’s kinda hard to tell if employment discrimination is occuring if the don’t record your race, gender and disability status.
They use that information to prevent discrimination.
For example, if the statistics show that they’ve interviewed a fairly even mixture of men and women, but only seem to hire men, that woul be a sign that there’s discrimination happening.
Without those statistics it’s hard to prove anything, because they can just claim that they didn’t get any applicants from whichever group you’re talking about.
The information isn’t supposed to be accessible to the person who actually decides who gets hired.
It is legal as long as you aren’t discriminating against a minority