What can job advertisements tell us about discrimination? We analysed 5000 recruitment campaigns targeting workers in Chinese electronics manufacturing:
Age discrimination is seasonal: There is a preference for workers under 35 years of age during off-seasons. Workers up to 45 years old are accepted during busy production periods.
Gender discrimination is phasing out: Earlier women were preferred – now sex is rarely mentioned as a criterion.
Other exclusion criteria become less exclusive: Earlier recruiters didn’t want candidates with cigarette burns – now, you can have up to two. Earlier tattoos were not allowed – now you can have one if it is not larger than your hand.
Ethnic discrimination continues: Recruitment campaigns frequently exclude specified ethnic minorities – that was common already before forced labour of Uyghurs became a widely recognized supply chain issue.