MOSCOW, July 13 (RIA Novosti) – As of midnight tonight, employers in Russia will no longer be allowed to indicate the desired race, sex, ethnicity, marital status, faith, age or physical appearance for applicants in job advertisements, Russian media reported Saturday.
The changes come under new regulations passed by the Federation Council in June and signed by President Vladimir Putin on July 2, and lawmakers say they aim to tackle workplace discrimination.
“Discrimination will not be rooted out completely. That takes time. It’s just that there are some underhand employers who want to hire 20 year old saleswomen, for example […] and now they’ll have to interview 20 year olds and 30 year olds,” Lawmaker Mikhail Tarasenko told the Gazeta.ru news site in an article published Saturday.
“Those who only want to hire young people, or who don’t want to hire people of certain ethnicities will now not be able to find any justification for doing that,” Tarasenko added.
To date, employers in Russia have been able to be very specific about who they want to hire, specifying physical attributes, age, or ethnic origin.
From Sunday, violations will result in fines ranging from 500-1,000 rubles ($15-$30) for individuals, and 3,000-5,000 rubles ($90-$150) for individual entrepreneurs to 10,000-15,000 ($300-$450) for legal entities.
