A quarter of hiring managers say they are less likely to move forward with Jewish applicants, according to a survey conducted by a San Francisco-based employment resource firm.
In light of recent high-profile cases of antisemitism in the U.S., ResumeBuilder.com polled 1,131 recruiters. Twenty-three percent say they want fewer Jews in their industry, while 17% add that managers have told them to avoid hiring Jews.
The top reason for discriminating against Jews, the results show, is a supposed fear of their “power and control,” with 38% of hiring managers citing that excuse. Recruiters also justified discrimination by claiming that Jews consider themselves the “chosen people” and they have too much wealth, in addition to listing that “Jews are greedy,” “Jews killed Jesus,” “Jews are an inferior race,” “Jews are oppressors” and “Jews are less capable.”
“In this era of fighting for equality in hiring, Jewish individuals have largely been left out of the conversation and the issue of antisemitism has, for the most part, gone unaddressed,” said Stacie Haller, ResumeBuilder.com executive recruiter and career counselor. “Antisemitism in the workplace starts at the hiring process with individuals who do not want to hire Jews because of bigoted stereotypes, but that is not where it ends.”
Among current employees, 33% said that workplace antisemitism is frequent and 29% said that antisemitism is acceptable within the company that employs them, according to the survey.
While 56% of hiring managers understood that candidates were Jewish because they had confirmed it themselves, 33% said they identified their Jewishness by their last names and 26% of hiring managers make decisions about who is Jewish based on a candidate’s appearance, the survey found. Some recruiters said they had identified Jewish candidates by their “voice,” their “mannerisms,” or because, “they are very frugal.”
Said Haller, “Organizations need to commit to oversight, training and having meaningful conversations about antisemitism. Removing prejudice and ensuring the workplace is equal, fair and accessible for all is not an easy challenge for organizations to tackle, but it’s absolutely essential.”
There does appear to be some room for optimism, however. Thirty-one percent of those surveyed claim their attitude towards Jews has improved over the last five years. Nine percent say their attitudes towards Jews have worsened, though, while 60% noted no change. JNS
Add Jews to negroes, women, and all other ethnics and races that are . Hiring managers want to hire experienced people at less money than the guy being replaced. The experience of a 60 year old and the salary of a 20 year old. People are the greatest expense in every organization, study or no study, it’s the $$$.
These are very interesting survey results. I would imagine it is to be expected, since we know that Eisav Soneh L’Yaakov, but it is a bit odd, if you think about it.
Firstly, we aren’t seeing (and really have not seen in many years) a resultant difficulty for frum Jews to find employment as a general rule (at least not worse than the rest of the population), in spite of this type of antisemitism. One would think the that if so many firms are avoiding hiring Jews, this would present itself as an issue.
We also must wonder where the survey was conducted. It is a San Francisco based firm, so if they did their survey out there, you can bet that there are few frum yidden looking for jobs out there, and the ramifications of SF-based hiring managers not liking Jews would be negligible. But if they did the survey in areas that matter Jewishly, like Chicago, LA, Miami, etc., then you would expect a)some employment fallout as a result, and b)at least some positive reactions from some hiring personnel, since the fact is that statistically Jewish people are better employees than average (the tone of the presentation of the survey results doesn’t sound like there was much positivity if any).
There also was something missing that I would have expected. My early experience in the working world was often hearing the complaint that we Jews take off too many Jewish holidays, and that wasn’t mentioned here at all.
It is quite possible that this survey has nothing to do with frum Jews at all, and is discussing the hiring of Jews in general. This would perhaps explain some of the points mentioned, but is still questionable since managers based their identification of Jewish applicants based on mannerisms, voice, appearance, frugality (?!), all of which make sense in regard to religious Jews, not so much the secular crowd.
But you can be sure if a hiring manager said he avoids hiring blacks, and especially if he gave some excuses, and even more especially if he said he was instructed by his managers to hire less blacks, there would be major hell to pay, with heads rolling, firms “cancelled”, etc. But not for the Jews. With us, it’s business as usual…
Survey wasn’t discussing Orthodox Jews
Real hard. More sabbath jews needed.
It’s largely because we don’t get along with others, we argue, rant, push. The stereotype is based on something. I have seen this in every company I ever worked for.
Work for a frum company that are always Ehrlich