Окт 16 2012

• Age, gender and ethnicity/native language are the most often discriminatory factors used by employers evaluating potential job applicants
• Ministry of Interior: the draft law on granting Latvian citizenship to all non-citizens contravenes the EU commitments

According to a survey on compliance of personnel recruitment practices with the Labour Law, conducted by a company CV-Online Latvia, age, gender and ethnicity/native language are the most often discriminatory factors used by employers evaluating potential applicants for job. 12% of employers do not comply with the requirements of the Labour Law regarding job announcements. 60% of those ask for foreign language proficiency unreasonably in an announcement, 23% indicate age and 17% indicate gender of search employee. Employers explained they ask for additional foreign language proficiency taking into account that in future an employee might have to communicate with foreign partners, clients or enterprise’s foreign owners. Neatkariga

The Ministry of Interior negatively evaluates the draft law on granting Latvian citizenship to all non-citizens. The Ministry argues that it is impermissible situation when a person has a valid document (passport of non-citizen), yet the legal status itself no longer exists and the person would use the document, which no longer corresponds to his legal status; besides, this is a long-term process which would bring uncertainty not only to Latvia, but also abroad, as well as contravening the EU commitments. As reported, the draft law collected 10,000 of required signatures and was submitted to the Central Election Committee (CEC) for the second stage of initiation of national referendum. However, the CEC asked for evaluation of the draft law by various legal experts and institutions and on the basis of these evaluations will take the decision whether such draft law can be forwarded for potential referendum. Chas