To see, or not to see: Online job advertisement and EU non-discrimination law

Abstract

The recruitment process has largely moved online. Job advertisements which used to be bound to newspapers and other print media have become an online service as part of a growing trend towards a more digitalised hiring process. Alongside increased flexibility and cost-cutting, this trend brings so previously unseen challenges. The technology behind online job portals and social media allows job ads to be shown to targeted groups of people using machine learning techniques to filter through the available data and search for the most suitable audience. The correlations that are inferred by algorithms between content and audience, however, can lead to biased outcomes. This is a serious problem since the specific risk with online job ads is that jobseekers who are considered less suitable by the algorithm will not see the ad at all. Such a result effectively hinders access to the labour market and poses the risk of perpetuating existing biases and discrimination. Those discrimination risks raise questions about the legal framework of online job advertisements. This article examines the requirements of the new EU initiatives to regulate artificial intelligence and the digital market and EU non-discrimination law regarding online job advertisements. It also proposes a low-tech solution to the high-tech problems associated with online job advertisements by introducing a legal requirement to publicly tender job ads on an online noticeboard, thus ensuring transparency and effective access to employment.