Employment Discrimination Myth

By Matthew Mohr

Over time a myth was built around our market having lower wages than nationally and about businesses discriminating against certain groups. I would not doubt in certain circumstances both of these situations may occur. But I have never witnessed it myself in our region, although I have heard stories of businesses discriminating in the area.

While working in Dallas, I did have one single divorced mother say her boss was holding her job progression back because of her status as a single, unwed mother, but I did not find this to be the case. In a major metropolitan area like Dallas, some discrimination is likely to happen and a business probably can get by with it. As you read about the successful women in our region in this magazine, it should be obvious we have some very talented, successful women who have either through personal determination, education, or pure ability made it to the top of their profession. Only a fool would choose not to work with any of these ultra-successful people because they are a woman.

In my experience, our region’s wages are very competitive nationally. Despite the misleading statistics published by our state employment office, the true wage rate comparisons I have reviewed put us essentially equal to or ahead of other areas in the country.

Logically thinking, no business owner could succeed by paying substandard wages or discriminating. A business must work hard to employ the very best people, and choosing a lesser employee because of race, religion, gender or ethnic background would be foolish. Similarly, by continually offering substandard wages, a business would not attract qualified workers, and as a result would eventually fail.

According to the bureau of statistics, women over the age of 16 represent almost 47% of our workforce. Considering the growth in full time professional women in our workforce, this is not a surprising statistic, although it would have been unexpected to see such a large percentage of our workforce being women a century ago. Business and the workforce certainly has and will change over time. Hopefully, we get smarter and better as time passes.

A good friend of mine in a major metropolitan area was informed by his local labor department that his workforce could be considered discriminative. He was astonished at such a suggestion. He simply responded, “Take a look around, we have every race, every religious background and a completely diverse group, all earning excellent wages.”

The government watchdog replied that the business had a smaller percent of certain ethnic race groups so they felt an investigation might be warranted. His opinion was the government watchdog targeted him not because of his lack of a diverse workgroup but because he was a minority and didn’t meet their desired “ratios.” As a result he felt discriminated against for not discriminating in his hiring to meet “government imposed quotas.”

Discrimination of any kind was the furthest from the truth in this situation. As my grandfather would say, “figures don’t lie, but figurers often do.”

Successful employers seek to hire and retain the best talent. Any form of discrimination is a foolish practice that will inevitably lead to failure.