Jewish and Israeli Americans face “substantial” discrimination in the labor market, according to a study the Anti-Defamation League published on Wednesday.
Jewish American job seekers needed to send 24% more applications to receive the same number of positive first responses from prospective employers as Americans with Western European backgrounds when applying to the same role, the ADL found. For Israeli Americans, the challenge was even greater, requiring 39% more applications.
“This is groundbreaking evidence of serious antisemitic discrimination in the labor market,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL. “On top of increasing antisemitic incidents and growing antisemitic beliefs, this landmark study illustrates the very real need for employers to take anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli prejudice more seriously to have a workplace that works for everyone.”
The ADL tasked Bryan Tomlin, a labor economist and professor of economics at California State University Channel Islands in Ventura County northwest of Los Angeles, with submitting applications to online administrative assistant job postings using resumés that were identical except for indicators that the applicant might be Jewish or Israeli.
Tomlin sent 3,000 inquiries to listings across the United States, using identical email text and resumés that differed only in the name of the applicant—selected to sound Jewish, Israeli or Western European—and resumé signals of likely Jewish, Israeli or Western European background.
“Without the benefit of a study of this kind, it is difficult, if not impossible, to prove adverse treatment in the labor market based on one’s religion or cultural identity,” Tomlin said. “This study shows that Jewish and Israeli Americans may be missing out on job opportunities just because of their identity, not their qualifications, and it provides a start toward quantifying some of these more subtle but still harmful symptoms of antisemitism.”
The study notes that because the applications focused on administrative jobs, “the extent to which these results can be applied to other markets is not known.”
“Given the results of this study, further investigation of potential adverse treatment of these protected groups in other markets (non-labor) is warranted as well,” it concludes.
