15 percent of working Amsterdammers employment discrimination
Fifteen percent of the people working in Amsterdam suffer from discrimination in the workplace, according to research by the municipality of Amsterdam. 2,500 workers of people looking for work completed a survey.
Workers have to deal with bullying behavior and that they are paid less for the same work of heavy tasks on their plate. Mainly people with a Turkish or Moroccan background, temporary workers, young people and women experience discrimination in the workplace. Workers who experience discrimination are on average less satisfied with their work, less healthy and have a higher absenteeism than colleagues who do not experience this.
To combat such discrimination, the municipality of Amsterdam is launching a sequel on the campaign Come on Amsterdam and calls on workers to stand up for each other. The campaign will be launched on Tuesday, on diversity day; a day dedicated to the importance of diversity in the workplace.
Alderman Rutger Groot Wassink (Diversity, GroenLinks): ‘Discrimination is unacceptable, also in the workplace. The figures from the research are confronting and show that things have to change. With this campaign we try to speak out for employers and employees against discrimination.’
Age Discrimination
The same survey shows that 21 percent of Amsterdammers have been discriminated against when applying for a job in the past year. This also concerns age discrimination: a third of the group is working: people over 55 indicated that they receive.
This feeling is even more common among people with a migration background. For example, almost half of Amsterdammers with a Moroccan migration background (sometimes) think that they have been recognized as discrimination when applying for a job. Discrimination of registered applicants with a Turkish or Surinamese background.
It is striking that there is discrimination with a Turkish background. Highly educated applicants are less likely to experience discrimination in their rejection than less educated applicants; there is no appreciable difference between men and women.
Hotline
The Discrimination Region Amsterdam hotline received 131 reports of employment discrimination in 2020. A year earlier, there were 142. Jerrol Marten, director of the hotline: “Our research showed that employees at work often cannot report safely. Often a confidential counselor within an employee’s company is missing, afraid of the consequences of the report.”
Marten calls on Amsterdammers who encounter discrimination in the workplace to continue to report it. “In response to reports, we can enter into discussions with a company from an entire sector.”
The campaign can be seen on the streets, in public transport, on social media and in real workplaces in Amsterdam for two weeks