San Fransicso: A lawsuit was filed on Wednesday by the Communications Workers of America revealed several US employers are actively promoting age discrimination targeting younger workers by placing recruitment ads on Facebook.
According to the Lawsuit filed in Federal court in San Francisco, Companies including T-Mobile US, Amazon.com and Cox Communications and others have limited the recruitment ads that can reach the audience based on their ages as less as 38 in few companies.
The complaint read as, “This pattern or practice of discrimination denies job opportunities to individuals who are searching for and interested in jobs, reduces the number of older workers who apply for jobs with the offending employers and employment agencies, and depresses the number of older workers who are hired.”
Micro-targeting enables the advertisers to limit their audience and select to whom they choose to promote their ads based on age, interests, race and even such characteristics as whether they dislike people based on race or religion.
This is the latest example of criticism practiced on Facebook called the micro-targeting.
Though Facebook in its official statement on its website said the company does not promote or engage in practicing age discrimination.
Peter Romer-Friedman, the attorney appearing for the lawsuit filed said various companies rely on social media to recruit workers and this micro-targeting policy is harming job seekers who are over the age policy of these companies.
He also added that Lawyers are planning to add defendants to the case and will also seek class-action status for the case, Reuters reported.
Responding to the complaint filed by the workers, Amazon said “We recently audited our recruiting ads on Facebook and discovered some had targeting that was inconsistent with our approach of searching for any candidate over the age of 18,”
The complaint also included various images of these recruitment ads which when clicked would open a screen that targets the particular age group.
“You’re seeing this ad because Amazon Fulfillment Jobs wants to reach people ages 18 to 54 who live or were recently near Silver Spring Maryland,” read a recruitment ad.
Meanwhile, T-Mobile and Cox did not comment on the claims by the workers.
But one of T- Mobile’s recruitment ad about customer service read as “There may be other reasons you’re seeing this ad, including that T-Mobile Careers wants to reach people ages 18 to 38.”