It seems that Facebook has been fated to become embroiled in one controversy after another. Hardly a day goes by when there is no news about Facebook getting grilled by someone, or Facebook defending its stance in front of people. Now, the US. Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against the famous American social media platform, accusing the company of practicing ‘preference’ and ‘favoritism’ in their recruitment process.
The US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the tech giant on 3rd December 2020 by alleging the company to have intentionally created a recruitment process that only favors foreigners and people who come to the US on temporary visas.
The Department of Justice’s claims are based on their investigation that they performed to deeply analyze the company’s hiring process. It was noted that Facebook deliberately rejects the applications from US nationals and prefers to hire people from other countries and bring them to the US on the H-1B visa. Or they prefer hiring immigrants or people with a temporary work visa. There is no doubt that these employees are skillful and they deserve to get jobs anywhere they want, but the Department of Justice is not happy with the fact that in doing so, Facebook has deprived the American citizens of almost around 2600 jobs so far.
Now, this type of hiring practice is being construed as ‘recruitment bias, ‘and the Department of Justice is now trying to get action against it.
Facebook of course has disputed the claim but has agreed to cooperate with the Department and the eventual decision.
The lawsuit may cost Facebook to pay back to all the US workers that were denied employment by the company.
Now, this is huge. The Department of Justice is seeking payback to all those American applicants who had applied for jobs at Facebook but were denied employment. Now, this is a little sketchy, and it is like the Department of Justice is stretching the matter too far. There might have been some kind of preference and bias, but this is also possible that some of those applicants were not deemed fit for the job because of their own lacking skills or qualifications? Is it not the recruiter’s job to see who really fits for the position and who does not? Maybe some of those American citizens had something lacking that made them unfit for the job, and perhaps that was the reason why they were not selected?
Facebook will have to provide this proof that it was no favoring immigrants and foreigners with an H-1B visa because they had agreed on lower salaries than what the company would have to pay to their own nationals. Because this is one major reason why most multinational companies prefer to hire foreigners, who work amazingly well and charge only half of what their national counterparts would agree upon.
The Department of Justice will fight against the illegal preferring system in all companies.
This recruitment bias is illegal, and the Department of Justice is going to hold those companies accountable who engage in such hiring practices. This is a loud and clear warning for all the companies. For all workers in the US, the DOJ says that if companies deny them employment because of this illegal recruitment process, the DOJ will stand with them and fight for them. The reason is that no one can illegally prefer to recruit or hire temporary visa holders over American workers.
Eric S Dreiband, the assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s civil rights division has said that the department is likely to take strict actions against the companies that hire or prefer immigrants and temporary visa holders over Americans in the form of a full payback. Perhaps later, some other penalties may be added just to stop these illegal recruitment practices. Bias should be discouraged anyway.
I’m Ava Paul, an experienced news website author with a special focus on the entertainment section. Over the past five years, I have worked in various positions of media and communication at World Stock Market. My experience has given me extensive knowledge in writing, editing, researching and reporting on stories related to the entertainment industry.
