A new anti-discrimination ordinance – Race Discrimination Ordinance – was enacted in Hong Kong in July last year and has come into operation since 10 July 2009. Now, employers have to observe altogether four ordinances in order to prevent breaking the law in recruitment issues.
To provide HR practitioners updated knowledge on these ordinances and related recruitment issues, JobsDB Hong Kong organized the Best Practice for Recruitment Advertisement Seminar in early October 2009, and invited Florence Chan, Senior Training Officer from Equal Opportunities Commission, to share with around 100 HR practitioners.
Employers are reminded that it is unlawful to discriminate against job candidates in the arrangements of recruitment, in the terms of appointment and by refusing to offer the employment on six prohibited grounds: sex, marital status, pregnancy, disability, family status and race. Chan reminded the audience that it is unlawful to publish or cause to publish job advertisements that indicate intention to discriminate.
For example:
- If you post a job advertisement only in Chinese looking for a cleaner who does not require to read or write Chinese, then you may have violated the Race Discrimination Ordinance.
- If you advertise for a warehouse assistant who must have strong physique, you may have violated the Disability Discrimination Ordinance.
To avoid breaking the law, employers can consider the following solutions to the above cases:
- Posting a bilingual job advertisement
- Instead of "strong physique", state in the advertisement that "the job requires physical work".
Chan mentioned that there are exceptions to such rules when the job requires "genuine occupational qualification", or when the job candidate's disability prevents them from performing the "inherent requirement" of a job, or when "unjustifiable hardship" is incurred on persons concerned.
Source: JobsDB HK
Updated: 13 Oct 2009
