Better data enables stronger solutions for workplace discrimination

The report on fair employment practices can be more comprehensive and could be better broken down to capture actual trends.

- Sugidha Nithiananthan

The Workplace Fairness Legislation (WFL) is expected to be tabled in 2024. In that context, accurate and meaningful data about workplaces is important and relevant to inform policymaking and legislation.

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) released on Sept 24 its annual report on fair employment practices (FEP), based on a survey conducted in 2023, which aims to track the prevalence of workplace discrimination.

The findings appear highly encouraging, as they suggest that discrimination has been decreasing over the years and that having formal procedures is effective in reducing some forms of workplace discrimination.

According to the FEP report, 6 per cent of employees experienced workplace discrimination in 2023. This was lower than in 2022 (8.2 per cent), 2021 (8.5 per cent) and 2018 (24.1 per cent). The report also showed that during the same period, there was a downtrend in the proportion of job seekers who faced discrimination.

However, a closer look at how data is collected and reported in the FEP report shows there are limits to the conclusions that can be drawn.

NOT COMPREHENSIVE ENOUGH

The FEP survey did not include discrimination based on family responsibilities (like caregiving), medical conditions, sexual orientation and indirect discrimination. By not measuring characteristics such as these, the incidences of discrimination reported are much less.

And while discrimination on the basis of gender identity and criminal history was measured, the report did not present this data in any meaningful way.

This means we do not have a more detailed picture of the types of discrimination experienced by employees.

The data is also not segmented and measured in a way that enables us to more meaningfully understand and address the actual trends in discrimination.