Internet Job Postings Pose Legal Perils for Employers
By Tory Summey, HR Insights
Today, social media platforms, including Facebook and LinkedIn, allow employers to target their job listings based on various characteristics of the users they wish to reach. As a result, employers can theoretically identify better candidates while expending fewer resources. However, these ad platforms have drawn the ire of certain plaintiffs’ law firms and, more recently, the EEOC.
Facebook launched its job application tool in February 2017. The application allowed employers to target their job postings based on a variety of criteria, including a user’s age and gender. In December 2017, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) filed suit in the Northern District of California against T-Mobile, Amazon, and Cox Communications (plus a potential class of hundreds of other employers) for allegedly excluding older workers from receiving job ads in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.