Will have voted that it's ok in specific industries , but my default view is No. In the UK, employers can employ people based on specific characteristics like employing women in a domestic violence refuge center but looks..... ? Not a big fan plus there is a discriminatory element to it.

A employer should be able to hire anyone they want to its there business.

Well, if you're trying to get in a Hooters, or Girls Girls Girls, I think looks are a huge part of those jobs. Modeling is another.

I don't think so because they should hire people who are qualified or know how to do the job. I know a lot of pretty girls who got a job but couldn't do basic math.

model or actor like really shouldn't we know this

Don't they do that now? Your appearance at a face-to-face interview makes a lot of difference whether you get hired.

I haven’t given this much thought so I’m not sure what all the issues are, but at first glance, I would say that for positions where the person would interact with the public or represent the company in other contexts where their appearance might affect the outcome… a case could be made. But for somebody who spends their entire workday in a cubicle, or a warehouse, no.

I'm pretty liberal about appearance in the workplace, but I'm a little on the fence here. On the one hand, I don't think anyone should be discriminated against because of superficialities, so long as they can do the job. But, to some extent, people in certain positions are models, a part of the marketing effort, and that's more difficult to clearly nail down. And then there's the problem of visible tattoos. What happens if someone has a neck tattoo of a gun? That seems implicitly aggressive. Or a face tattoo with a gang symbol? Those would be hard to cover up, and I can see a public business being hesitant to hire someone who looked like that to be a host or greeter at an upscale business. But should someone be punished perpetually for a mistake they made many years ago? I don't have an answer. I don't feel like there's a good, clean answer to be had. And I find that to be frustrating.

Yes, i hate my answer but yes. probably why i can't get a security or body guard job cause I'm 5'6.

While certain positions could have legitimate reasons to consider appearance as a factor in employment, like models and actors, no industry should be able to consider appearance for all roles, especially roles where the general public never sees the employee in their professional capacity. I would, however, support legislation that would place a restriction on using appearance in all hiring simply because it could positively affect social biases about the definition of beauty to see the beauty/ fashion industry forced to cater to all body types and appearances.

I know this sounds terrible but appearance sells. If i needed to hire 5 out of 10 people to do a specific job and they're all mentally qualified and academically qualified. If i needed the 5 to be physically in shape to be able convince others that my firm is the best then those are the 5 I would hire. It's nothing personal... it's business. If i didn't need a qualified person as a greeter at a business I owned then I would hire the pleasant looking person. I got hired because there were no beautiful people out there that could do what i could do. Trust me... 3 of the new hires were over weight but the best qualified. I still had to get into the tight spots they couldn't squeeze into. That's life i guess. It's the same with dating and getting married. Most people don't settle... they seek out and find what they're looking for.

Well, if your're gauging from appearance, I will agree. I wouldn't want to hire anyone that's not well groomed and smells bad.

What if I am intentionally trying to avoid discriminating, is that in itself a form of discrimination?

Say I hire an unattractive person to do a job rather than a more attractive person with the same abilities just to prove I'm not discriminating based on looks?

Does "appearance" include things like hygiene and skin conditions? Because if I'm a business owner (spoiler: I'm not) I don't want to hire anyone who I reasonably feel may turn away customers and end up hurting my business. This means maybe someone with peeling skin is not hired to handle food, or someone with visibly missing teeth is not hired as host/hostess. If all you're talking about is male vs female, attractive vs ugly, fat vs thin, then no.

It sucks that we live in such a shallow society that unconventional-looking people get short shrift. I'd like to work toward changing that. But not by forcing a bad solution. Here's how I think of it: if missing teeth guy doesn't get the job, it affects him, maybe his family. If missing teeth guy gets the job and the business suffers because customers are turned off and stay away, then many more people are potentially negatively impacted by the downturn.

If the yacht store doesn't want to hire some dumpy middle aged gray head because they think only young fit attractive salesmen will be able to perform up to the specifications they desire, well...I just don't know there. I don't think it's fair, but I also think snooty yacht store owners should be free to staff their businesses whichever way they prefer for the sake of the business. It's a pickle, and I'm no justice scholar.

So that's an "other" for me.

I have worked in a large number of situations from fast food to heavy industry. Let me clue you that there are many people working in industry you would not want handling your food. Some professions require a certain look that not everybody has. This is another one of those questions that has a range of answers and situations.

I voted for specific needs...

Models, actresses/actors, spokeswomenspokesmen

Entertainment like movies it's almost crucial to hire based on looks, even with CGI. Can't have Johnny Depp playing Tyrion Lannister(though normal height people were hobbits...), a Female Thor, or someone with dreadlocks playing Stephen Hawking or Steve Jobs.

I don't much like the idea; however, in certain circumstances it's permitted in the UK - Indian restaurants are allowed to specify that only people Indians and people of Indian descent will be considered for waiting jobs, for example, because Indian staff are what customers expect. Personally, I wouldn't mind a white person serving me my curry any more than I'd mind an Indian person dishing up my fish and chips.