The blue of the rainbow: queerness and hiring discrimination in blue-collar occupations

Abstract

The extant literature and anecdotal evidence suggest that blue-collar workers who are openly queer (an inclusive term for sexual and gender minorities) are among the most marginalized in the labour market. This article reports the results of a correspondence audit of hiring discrimination in entry-level positions in the Canadian blue-collar sector. Creating four fictitious job candidates with welding skills, 2000 applications were sent to openings across Canada. Applications were identical except for gender-specific first names and volunteer activities, which were designed to signal some applicants as queer and others as straight and cisgender. The straight cisgender male received the highest number of callbacks; almost twice as many as the queer male, who was the least favoured among the four candidates. There was no statistically significant difference in callback rates between the two female applicants by queer status.