Anecdotal reports and previous research has suggested employers could be using applicants’ addresses as a shortcut to screen people from less desirable areas or housing estates.   And now, the Department for Work and Pensions has published some new research which considers the extent to which address-based discrimination by employers exists and what its potential contribution may be to high rates of worklessness in deprived areas.

The main findings of the research conducted with employers, recruitment agencies and Jobcentre Plus representatives are that:

• Employers do occasionally use information related to the applicants’ address as a shortcut to screen applicants. This relates primarily to practical factors (e.g. distance from the workplace); although statements made by a limited number of respondents suggest that area-based discrimination could potentially be occurring, there was no direct evidence of this.
• Quantitative evidence supports the thesis that individuals living in deprived areas may face disadvantages in the labour market, additional to their own personal characteristics but the research could not offer any more conclusive evidence of the relative contribution of ‘postcode selection’/address-based discrimination.
• There is also a suggestion that individuals with more disadvantaging personal characteristics may gain some marginal employment/earnings advantage from living in a relatively more deprived area. However this effect is marginal in comparison to the overall disadvantage associated with living in a deprived area.

The report also considers whether employer information networks could help combat inaccurate stereotypical perceptions among employers.  It concluded that there is only a limited scope for using employer information networks to change employer behaviour in terms of screening applicants; employers reported limited evidence of changing behaviour in response to such information.