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U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#151

Post by dlss »

lucisferre wrote: post #133
freditup wrote: post #123

That means we so far have: * Palantir sued for not hiring enough Asians [0] * Google sued for not turning over compensation data [1] * Oracle sued for hiring too many Asians While it's possible that discriminatory processes have happened at all these places, it seems these lawsuits can be targeted at whoever one wishes. It's always going to be possible to find data that indicates discrimination, unless companies hire…

Not saying that I agree with quotas as a solution to problems like discriminatory biases in hiring, but how is a quota system "discriminatory"? What race, sex or age group is discriminated against by a requirement that appropriate proportions of those demographics make up the companies employees? (Heck in most cases quotas are simply a low bar, they are not even proportional to the population demographics.) I can und…

Google has actually released a paper on codifying what discrimination looks like for lending (https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.02413 + blog post: https://research.googleblog.com/2016/10/equality-of-opportun...). It can be trivially extended to discuss hiring.

Basically a fair hiring process as defined by the above would be:

P(hire | features) = P(hire | race=1, features) = P(hire | race=2, features)

This may sound a bit silly or unnecessary, but unless this formula is specifically enforced, if a race were correlated with expected profit of a hire, a hiring algorithm might accidentally infer race from the other features. You can see the paper for an extended discussion.

With that background out of the way, let's consider hiring based on quotas. Since hiring takes place continuously across time, in order to maintain a quota across time we would need to change P(hire | race=1) based on the current composition of the company. Therefore P(hire | race=1) != P(hire | race=2) at least some of the time. Therefore it's discriminatory according to the above definition.

Of course, you may not like the definition. I would be very interested to hear an alternate formalization of non-discrimination!

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#152

Post by insickness »

grepthisab wrote: post #47
_m8fo wrote: post #15

Couple points: First, this is where the meat is: https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ofccp/ofccp20170118-0 Second: "...Oracle nevertheless preferred Asian applications over other qualified applicants in the Professional Technical 1, Individual Contributor Job group and in the Product Development job group at statistically significant rates." [1] [1] https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/newsroom/newsrelease... --…

When you say anonymous, how do you mean it? As in: the interviewer meets face-to-face without a resume in front of them, or the interviewer has a resume but the interview is done over the phone, or a phone interview with no resume?

We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews.

https://blog.interviewing.io/we-built-voice-modulation-to-ma...

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#153

Post by CapOneThrow1234 »

pslam wrote: post #71
titomc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Most of the time it is just easier to hire Asian/Indian employees because they are readily available " - I doubt that. It's "easier" to hire because they "agree" to lower wages and its easier to retain them, because their visa status is tied to the employer. The employers have H1B workers on a leash. The process of hiring an H1B worker in short. - Hire an immigration lawyer. - Post an LCA. - Apply petition to USCIS…

You're missing the part where the employer is required to: - Post representative salary data, including the last few (5?) hires to this position. - Publish the job position locally, so it can be filled by local workers preferentially, and then only by H1B if unfilled. - Ensure the worker is initially paid a salary similar to other existing hires in that position. I don't understand how people make the leap that H1B i…

No post body was provided.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#154

Post by shrewduser »

namelezz wrote: post #142
freditup wrote: post #123

That means we so far have: * Palantir sued for not hiring enough Asians [0] * Google sued for not turning over compensation data [1] * Oracle sued for hiring too many Asians While it's possible that discriminatory processes have happened at all these places, it seems these lawsuits can be targeted at whoever one wishes. It's always going to be possible to find data that indicates discrimination, unless companies hire…

> Oracle sued for hiring too many Asians You mean Indians not East Asians, right? From the OP: > Oracle was far more likely to hire Asian applicants - particularly Indian people

so what kind of discrimination is this then i wonder? hiring people from cultures / places who tend to do more computer science? ie. white guys, indians and east asians?

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#155

Post by zaroth »

hueving wrote: post #69
bubbleRefuge wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I can tell the way sentences are formed in many cases if I'm dealing with a native speaker or not.

Would you kindly do the willingly and explain how? :)

Maybe add next time, although the smiley should have been a dead giveaway.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#157

Post by illumin8 »

hibikir wrote: post #126
pslam wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the part where the employer is required to: - Post representative salary data, including the last few (5?) hires to this position. - Publish the job position locally, so it can be filled by local workers preferentially, and then only by H1B if unfilled. - Ensure the worker is initially paid a salary similar to other existing hires in that position. I don't understand how people make the leap that H1B i…

The prevailing wage comes from a chart: you don't just do research or come up with it. Figuring out which prevailing wage to use among the existing job descriptions is already a matter of judgement, and you can just aim for the low one. Publishing the position locally is easily skirted: It's not published in places that people look at, it's not written in a way that makes it sound appealing, and often has some nonsen…

Thank you for your insightful comment - I wish people like you would testify in front of congress on the abuses of the H1B process that are clearly widespread.

It's depressing to think about the stress and anxiety this might cause someone who is literally facing deportation if he doesn't "suck it up" and keep working at a sweat shop for the same salary they were hired at 5+ years ago.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#158

Post by wyager »

freditup wrote: post #123

That means we so far have: * Palantir sued for not hiring enough Asians [0] * Google sued for not turning over compensation data [1] * Oracle sued for hiring too many Asians While it's possible that discriminatory processes have happened at all these places, it seems these lawsuits can be targeted at whoever one wishes. It's always going to be possible to find data that indicates discrimination, unless companies hire…

Indeed. Just by normal statistical variance, we should expect that at least a few companies would have employee distributions that aren't exactly in line with the applicant population.

When the government looks at everyone's employment data and seeks out people who are deviating from the mean, they are guaranteed to turn up spurious results. This is known as "Data Dredging" in science, and it is very bad.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#159

Post by bigbang »

briandear wrote: post #128
conanbatt wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> abusing the H1-B visa system by purposefully keeping wages low? I hate this argument. All immigration has a first-degree effect of lowering wages, because it increases the supply of labor. Believe me, foreigners do not like H1Bs, its a piece of shit, and would wish for free passage or as easy as it can be. And if that happened, that would lower wages of everyone, and raise theirs. Reneging that h1b allows to hire c…

However, the H-1B visa is a non immigrant visa.

That's not true. It's a dual intent visa - otherwise one would not be allowed to file for green card while being on H1 visa

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#160

Post by [deleted] »

CapOneThrow1234 wrote: post #153
pslam wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the part where the employer is required to: - Post representative salary data, including the last few (5?) hires to this position. - Publish the job position locally, so it can be filled by local workers preferentially, and then only by H1B if unfilled. - Ensure the worker is initially paid a salary similar to other existing hires in that position. I don't understand how people make the leap that H1B i…

[deleted]
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