GUEST COMMENT: Pity the white, non-disabled, heterosexual, middle-aged unemployed man
I have taken the last three years away from working in financial services to look after two children until they both moved to secondary school.
Since trying to get back into the market, I have been contacted by many recruitment agents/consultants. However, when they become aware of my 'career break,' their interest subsides.
Several of them have acknowledged that when a woman takes a career break, it's positive. But when a man takes a career break, it's a major hurdle. Once I've submitted a CV with full dates (I'm 45) I never hear from any recruitment agent/consultants again. Nor do they return my messages or calls.
I feel that I am being discriminated against. In an economic environment where jobs are scarce, any measure that might encourage firms to hire a less qualified woman instead of a better qualified man, will make it even harder for the tiny minority of white, non-disabled, heterosexual, middle aged men returning from a career break to obtain work.
It is hard enough for non-minorities at work (excluded from the Women's Networking Group, the Black Networking Group, the Rainbow networking Group, the Asian Networking Group etc. - I kid you not).
Requiring firms to report only on one dimension of the complex matrix of employee profiles is simplistic and misses the point.
In this context, I think the government's new gender pay audit is misguided. Pandering to the interests of one category of employees is quite simply, wrong.
