Under federal law, potential workers cannot be discriminated against for almost any reason including race, religion, or ethnicity.

It turns out that what the federal government says businesses are required to do and what they actually do are two different things. A new Gallup poll shows that for people who smoke or are overweight and are looking for a job, getting hired may present a unique problem.

The poll says that about one in four Americans say they would be “less likely” to hire a person if they found out that he or she smoked. Nearly one in five say the same about hiring an overweight person.

Almost all companies will say that the perceptions have nothing to do with their process of screening and hiring new workers. There is no way to find out whether these claims are true. What goes on in the offices of executives and HR managers is almost always confidential.

But some bias does affect the public’s perception. Walmart (NYSE: WMT) is faced with a class actions suit that claims that female employees were systematically paid less than men.  Walmart  could be faced with hundreds of millions of dollars in damages if it loses the case, according to some legal experts.

Smoking has become a smaller and smaller issue not only among workers but in the population in general as the places that people can smoke have dropped sharply due to public laws. Obesity is another matter as many government studies say that more than one-third of the adult population is significantly overweight.

Bias of one sort or another in everything from housing to hiring may never go away. It just becomes more well hidden.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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