Class and Social Background Discrimination in the Modern Workplace

This book exposes how inequalities based on class and social background arise from employment practices in the digital age. It considers instances where social media is used in hiring to infiltrate private lives and hide job advertisements based on locality. Additionally, it explores cases where algorithms assess socio-economic data to filter candidates, where human interviewers are replaced by artificial intelligence with designs that disadvantage users of classed language, and where already vulnerable groups become victims of digitalisation and remote work.

The author examines whether these practices create risks of discrimination based on certain protected attributes, including social origin in international labour law and laws in Australia and South Africa, as well as social condition and family status in laws within Canada and others. Class and Social Background Discrimination in the Modern Workplace proposes essential law reforms and improvements to workplace policy.