Employment discrimination can manifest in many different ways. In some cases, people can’t seem to overcome bias during the hiring process. Even after workers secure employment, they may find that they face discrimination from their employers when they pursue promotions.
Discrimination can also occur at the termination stage of an employment relationship. In some cases, targeted terminations involving specific employees may lead to allegations of discrimination. Discrimination might also theoretically be possible in a large-scale layoff scenario.
Workers included in layoffs may want to look at the situation carefully to determine if employers may have discriminated against them and some of their co-workers when deciding who got let go and who kept their jobs.
When does a layoff become discriminatory?
Employers can make staffing decisions for all kinds of reasons. Personal charisma, sales records, industry connections and workplace efficiency are some of the many details that can influence decisions about who the company retains, promotes or terminates.
In a restructuring or downsizing scenario where the company must eliminate multiple positions at once, leaders typically need to identify specific criteria for evaluating employees. At unionized businesses, seniority might be one of the main considerations. The newest hires are the ones at highest risk when the company eliminates positions.
Other times, job performance is the most important factor. Workers with lower performance review scores or multiple prior disciplinary issues might be at risk of losing their jobs. Regardless of what factors the company chooses to consider, it should not consider the protected characteristics of employees. Those characteristics include race, religion, national origin, medical condition, sex and age.
If a layoff includes all of the workers over the age of 40 and multiple different departments, that can be a warning sign of discrimination. So can scenarios where only members of certain religions seem to have kept their jobs. Companies typically need to ensure that they do not target groups of employees during layoffs based on their protected characteristics.
Workplace discrimination is one of the scenarios in which employees could theoretically assert that they experienced a wrongful termination. At-will employment statutes do not make it legal to fire workers based on their protected characteristics.
Reviewing the details of recent layoffs with a skilled legal team can help workers determine if they may have experienced employment discrimination and therefore wrongful termination. Workers who unfairly lose their jobs due to protected characteristics may be able to hold their employers accountable.