The settlement is the biggest ever for the DoJ involving claims of discrimination based on citizenship, the agency added
Apple Inc. will pay $25mln to settle claims by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) that the company illegally favoured immigrant workers over U.S. citizens and green card holders for certain jobs, the agency stated Thursday.
The Justice Department in a statement said Apple didn’t recruit U.S. citizens or permanent residents for jobs that were eligible for a federal program allowing employers to sponsor immigrant workers for green cards, in breach of a federal law that prohibits discrimination based on citizenship.
The settlement is the biggest ever for the DoJ involving claims of discrimination based on citizenship, the agency added. It requires Apple to pay $6.75mln in civil penalties and $18.25mln to an unspecified number of affected workers.
Apple in a statement said it had “unintentionally not been following the DOJ standard.”
We have implemented a robust remediation plan to abide with the requirements of various government agencies as we continue to hire American workers and grow in the U.S., the firm added.
As per the Justice Department, Apple didn’t advertise job openings that were eligible for the program, known as the permanent labour certification or PERM program, on its website as it routinely does for other positions. And the company required applicants for those jobs to mail paper applications even though it usually permits electronic applications, the department added.
These less effective recruitment procedures almost always resulted in few or no applications to PERM positions from applicants whose permission to work doesn’t expire, the department added.
The DoJ did not specify which Apple jobs were impacted by the recruitment procedures or how Apple may have benefited from them.
