A recent change in the law in Belgium lowers the
threshold for labour inspectors to use ‘mystery calls'
to test for discrimination in recruitment.
Our annual survey of HR trends showed that one in five companies
have been faced with an informal or formal discrimination
complaint, mainly on the grounds of apparent race or ethnic origin.
Discrimination in recruitment still seems to be difficult to prove
in court, but this now appears to be changing.
On 31 March 2022, the House of Representatives passed a bill
amending the Social Penal Code in order to introduce an additional
competence for social inspectors. The purpose of the amendment is
to give the labour inspection more scope to detect discrimination
in job applications by using ‘mystery calls'. This
enables proactive detection of forms of discrimination on the
labour market. The change was published in the Belgian State
Journal on 28 April 2022 and entered into force on 8 May 2022.
