Estonian minister wants to ban option to search for job candidates by gender, age

TALLINN – Estonia's Minister of Health and Labor Jevgeni Ossinovski has forwarded for a round of approvals a bill that would prohibit job mediation service providers to enable employers to search for job candidates by gender, age or any other criteria enabling discrimination.

The bill would add a new restriction to the set of restrictions valid for job mediation service providers. Namely, it will be prohibited for such service providers to enable employers and other persons to search for a job candidate by criteria enabling discrimination, or information about their first language. The criteria enabling discrimination are, for instance, age, gender, disability, religion and similar, it stands in the explanatory remarks accompanying the bill.

A job mediation service provider may enable filtering of job applicant data based on these criteria only if this is justified and consistent with the laws pertaining to equal treatment and gender equality.

In addition, the bill would change several other legislative provisions dealing with placement services and placement of rented workforce, as well as supervision.

The bill would amend the Labor Market Services and Benefits Act, the Taxation Act, the Gender Equality Act, the Employment Contract Act and the Unemployment Insurance Act.