[ad_1]
Apple CEO Tim Cook listens as President Joe Biden speaks during a roundtable with American and Indian business leaders in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, June 23, 2023.
Anna Geldmaker | Getty Images
Apple will pay $25 million in back pay and civil penalties to settle a case over the company’s hiring practices under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Justice Department announced Thursday.
Apple has agreed to pay $6.75 million in civil penalties and establish an $18.25 million fund for back payments to eligible victims of discrimination, the DOJ said in a news release.
Apple was accused of not advertising positions it wanted to fill through a federal program called Permanent Labor Certification Program, or PERM, which allows U.S. companies to recruit workers who can become permanent residents of the U.S. after meeting a number of requirements.
The DOJ said it believed Apple followed procedures designed to favor current Apple employees on temporary visas who wanted to become permanent employees. In particular, Apple was accused of failing to advertise job openings on its external website and creating hurdles such as requiring paper applications, which the DOJ said meant some applicants for Apple jobs were not properly considered under federal law taken.
PERM jobs are typically used to recruit international graduates from US universities.
“These less effective recruitment practices deterred U.S. applicants from applying and almost always resulted in zero or very few mail-in applications that Apple considered for PERM-related vacancies, allowing Apple to fill the vacancies with temporary visa holders,” the settlement agreement said. between Apple and DOJ.
Apple disputes the charge, according to the agreement, saying it believes it has complied with applicable Department of Labor regulations. Apple also disputes that any errors were the result of inadvertent errors and not discrimination, the agreement said.
“Apple proudly employs more than 90,000 people in the United States and continues to invest nationwide, creating millions of jobs. When we realized we had inadvertently failed to follow the DOJ standard, we reached a settlement that addresses their concerns an Apple spokesperson said. CNBC. “We have implemented a robust recovery plan to meet the demands of various government agencies as we continue to hire American workers and grow in the U.S.”
Apple has agreed to a recovery plan that includes establishing an official PERM hiring policy and reporting PERM hires and applicants to the DOJ twice a year.
