It is against the law to treat someone less favourably than someone else because of a personal characteristic such as religion, sex, gender reassignment or age.
Discrimination can include:
- not hiring someone
- selecting a particular person for redundancy
- paying someone less than another worker without good reason
You can discriminate against someone even if you do not intend to. For example, you can discriminate indirectly by offering working conditions or rules that disadvantage one group of people more than another.
Discrimination in Job adverts
You must not state or imply in a job advert that you’ll discriminate against anyone. This includes saying that you are not able to cater for workers with a disability.
Only use phrases like ‘recent graduate’ or ‘highly experienced’ when these are actual requirements of the job. Otherwise you could discriminate against younger or older people who might not have had the opportunity to get qualifications.
Where you advertise might cause indirect discrimination – for example, advertising only in men’s magazines.
