As of midnight on Saturday, July 13, employers are no longer allowed to indicate the desired race, sex, ethnicity, marital status, faith, age or physical appearance for applicants in job advertisements.
The changes come under new regulations passed by the Federation Council in June and signed by President Vladimir Putin on July 2, and lawmakers say they aim to tackle workplace discrimination, news reports said.
"Discrimination will not be rooted out completely. That takes time. It's just that there are some underhand employers who want to hire 20-year-old saleswomen, for example […] and now they'll have to interview 20 year olds and 30 year olds," Lawmaker Mikhail Tarasenko told Gazeta.ru on Saturday.
"Those who only want to hire young people, or who don't want to hire people of certain ethnicities will now not be able to find any justification for doing so," Tarasenko added.
To date, employers in Russia have been able to be very specific about who they want to hire, specifying physical attributes, age, or ethnic origin.
From Sunday, violations result in fines ranging from 500-1,000 rubles ($15-$30) for individuals, 3,000-5,000 rubles ($90-$150) for individual entrepreneurs, and 10,000-15,000 ($300-$450) for legal entities.
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