美国国家公共电台 NPR Are Job Ads Targeting Young Workers Breaking The Law?

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

All right. The job market is hot right now, and businesses are scrambling 1 to find available workers. But worker advocates say age discrimination persists when it comes to recruitment and hiring. Several pending 2 legal cases are putting the spotlight 3 on this issue, as NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports.

YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE 4: Linda Bradley's two decades at a call center came to an end when she was laid off about a year and a half ago. Since then, she's combed the Internet every day looking for jobs without much luck. Bradley is 45 and lives near Columbus, Ohio. Last year, someone at her union mentioned how recruiters often target online ads at younger candidates.

LINDA BRADLEY: I thought to myself, oh, that's why I wasn't seeing some of the ads that my daughter had seen on her Facebook.

NOGUCHI: Her daughter, who is 26, got hired right away. Bradley eventually took the only job she could land, making far less than before. She continues searching but feels disadvantaged.

BRADLEY: To have someone withhold 5 something that you qualify for - and I'm sorry. I get emotional talking about it. And it's a struggle taking care of four children, not being able to have the same opportunities as everybody else.

NOGUCHI: Bradley is now a plaintiff in a suit filed by the Communications Workers of America against T-Mobile, Facebook and a host of other businesses. The suit alleges 6 the companies discriminate 7 by excluding older workers from seeing their ads. T-Mobile didn't respond to requests seeking comment on the case; Facebook also declined. But in a December blog post, Facebook's vice 8 president of ads, Rob Goldman, defended the practice. He argued that tailoring ads is not illegal so long as the recruitment campaign overall is designed to reach all demographic groups. But Bradley says that's not what she observes.

BRADLEY: If I would've saw ads for employment, I would have definitely noticed them because I'm looking for employment.

NOGUCHI: Workplace civil rights law prohibits discrimination against workers 40 and older, yet worker advocates say recruiters sometimes exclude older workers by narrowing how and where they look for candidates. In addition to Bradley's suit, another recent case has challenged whether an employer can recruit exclusively on college campuses. Jody Calemine is chief of staff with the Communications Workers.

JODY CALEMINE: We see that this is one of the factors that keeps older workers out of the job market after a job loss.

NOGUCHI: Last month, Facebook signed a legally binding 9 agreement pledging to stop allowing advertisers to exclude people based on race, nationality or sexual orientation 10. But Calemine notes that did not include prohibitions 11 on exclusions 12 based on age.

CALEMINE: The agreement shows that they can fix the age discrimination issue very quickly, but they are resisting. And that is very perplexing.

NOGUCHI: Facebook allows users to click on a feature to see why they're seeing certain ads. Calemine says those disclosures are explicit 13 about their target audience. One T-Mobile job he cites seeks 18 to 38-year-olds.

CALEMINE: My jaw 14 dropped as I saw some of the ads we were able to uncover.

NOGUCHI: Calemine says targeted advertising 15 - the profit engine for most sites - is a new frontier for discrimination.

CALEMINE: Their business relies on this microtargeting. The problem is microtargeting can be discrimination. Civil rights don't stop when you turn on your computer.

NOGUCHI: But making the case in court won't be easy. Laurie McCann is a lawyer for the AARP Foundation, a nonprofit fighting poverty among seniors.

LAURIE MCCANN: Hiring discrimination is very difficult to prove because the applicant 16 is on the outside looking in.

NOGUCHI: She says, in these types of cases, the applicants 17 aren't claiming the employer discriminated 18 against them personally. Rather, McCann says, they're arguing the recruitment process itself has a discriminatory effect. That is, by targeting recruitment to younger people, employers end up excluding older job seekers. Whether that's a violation 19 of law, McCann says, is the question.

MCCANN: The issue is whether or not workers can even get into the courthouse door to challenge that practice that clearly screens out older workers.

NOGUCHI: That's the legal hurdle 20 Dale Kleber must clear. Kleber is 62, a lawyer and former executive at a Fortune 500 company living just outside Chicago. Three years ago, he applied 21 for a legal job with medical technology firm CareFusion. The posting specified 22 it was looking for candidates with three to seven years of experience but no more than seven. Kleber applied anyway, was rejected, then sued.

DALE KLEBER: I thought that was blatantly 23 discriminatory. Most people who are 40 years or older had been a lawyer for more than seven years.

NOGUCHI: In April, a three-judge panel on a federal appeals court ruled in Kleber's favor. They said the law protects applicants like Kleber. But the case remains 24 in limbo 25. CareFusion, which is now owned by another company, is appealing the decision. In a statement, the company denies its policies discriminate. But Kleber takes issue with the company's defense 26.

KLEBER: The response that the company gave was, well, Mr. Kleber was overqualified. And, frankly 27, I think that's a code word really for age discrimination.

NOGUCHI: The case will be reheard by the full 7th Circuit Appeals Court in November. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)