Etnisk diskriminering i rekryteringssituationer : Hur skyddet ser ut i Sverige och vad arbetsgivare kan göra för att förhindra diskriminerande rekryteringar

Ethnic discrimination is still a problem in the Swedish employment market. The Ombudsman against Ethnic Discrimination received 154 complaints relating to discrimination due to ethnicity in the working life in 2012. In addition, reported unemployment rates in Sweden differ markedly between native-born and foreign-born. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how protection against ethnic discrimination in recruitment looks like in Sweden and describe different methods an employer may use to prevent that ethnic discrimination occurs in recruitment situations. The first and second issue of the essay concern what protection there is in Sweden against ethnic discrimination in recruitment situations, based on international and national law. The traditional legal dogmatic method, which describes the valid law, is used in these sections. The third and fourth question formulation deals with different methods an employer may use to prevent discriminatory recruitment with elements of ethnic discrimination. This section contains a description of the active measures that can be found in the Discrimination Act, a proposal for recruitment process is presented and the method of using anonymous job applications is processed. These elements are presented from a Human Resource Management perspective. In summary, it can be noted that Sweden has a protection against ethnic discrimination in recruitment, which is part of UN conventions, EU directives and Swedish legislation in the form of the Discrimination Act (2008:567). In the judicial inquiry it is clear that the employer has the responsibility in the recruitment process to contribute to that persons irrespective of racial origin should have the opportunity to apply for vacant jobs, which follows from Chapter 3, § 7 Discrimination Act. There is also a regulation that means that people who are looking for a job or making an inquiry about the work may not be discriminated by employers, due to the Discrimination Act, Chapter 2, § 1. The analysis also shows that the Swedish Discrimination Act in many ways has similar contents to the EU Directive 2000/43/EC. The paper also describes a recruitment process which, among other things, includes a clear requirement profile for the actual service, uses a recruitment team that is characterized by diversity, and documents the process thoroughly. This allows a recruitment process with great opportunities to avoid ethnic discrimination. It will finally show that the method of anonymous job applications has both advantages and disadvantages