I have a friend whose wife did that in the UK. The employer then let her go. They sued and either won or settled (can't remember which).
I think it was for an executive type role.
The other cases of harassment are terrible. But I can sympathize with the managers/business owners on this one - not that I support them. I see their point.
Were I hiring in an environment where that was a legally protected right, I'd probably work it into my hiring planning in advance, then if it was occurring more often than I had accounted for, try to evaluate whether my planning was bad.
Can't see the point in getting upset about it.
So maybe you could simply hire her as well as another person who would be less likely to require leave during that period, but then your payroll needs grow - not a great business decision for a startup or whatever.
I think it's easy to see how this could be a predicament for a business without extra money and "get over it" isn't a very good answer IMO - at the very least you'll have discrimination being done in disguise until there's a better answer.
In some more advanced countries than the US or Papua New Guinea there is even mandatory paid leave, go figure.
As an exercise you can take the pregnant woman in your example and replace with a cyclist in a bike accident or someone who was just diagnosed with cancer.
BTW the paid leave is not paid by the employer, it's paid out of mandatory government insurance.
EDIT: please reply and discuss before downvoting. Downvoting adds nothing to the discussion.
In essence, the applicant has a right to demand treatment as if the employer didn't know that information. By not telling them, they're exercising that right, taking precautions so that it wouldn't be violated in a way that's illegal but hard to prove.
The employee has right to be treated as if the information was unknown, I never said the opposite and never wanted to even imply that (and I'm pretty sure that I did not). That doesn't mean that the employer shouldn't have an opportunity to plan accordingly (e.g. start looking for a temporary replacement, stop accepting new projects and so on).
However, giving that information right before a decision point (i.e. when changing jobs, getting a promotion, etc) is just inviting it to be misused, it's a risk they shouldn't be required or always expected to take.
For some context, some time ago I was involved in handling quite a few maternity/replacement situations. Our local laws are quite generous with maternity leave, so for existing employees we (in that company) had often started planning replacements as early as 6 months before start of their leave. However, this is a bit tricky - if there was some promotion issue in the middle of that period (3 months after I'd known but 3 months before she'd leave), I could try acting as if that information was unknown, but it's difficult, I can't magically unlearn things, I couldn't be sure myself if I wasn't biased one way or another (unless we had extremely dry formal procedure based on some arbitrary "objective" metrics that mismeasure as much as they measure), and I definitely couldn't prove that I wasn't influenced if that was contested. So in such an situation I might have even preferred not to know, despite the extra hassle it would cause.
It's probably a question of trust. If an employee is working in a trustworthy environment, they'd likely volunteer that information (which I've seen happen) and the employer would benefit from having created such an environment. But if employees feel a lack of trust, they would likely want to protect themselves and keep it a secret (which I've also seen happen), and IMHO they have (or should have) a right to do so if they really feel the need. The employer's reputation and trustworthiness is their own fault or achievement based on their previous actions, so in some sense they deserve what they get, whether it's trust or lack of it.
There of course are some "faceless corporations", I agree, but I'm not talking about these - the cost of an employee going on a leave is a fraction of their monthly budget. But most of businesses are small and can get into serious trouble easily.
And lastly, no one is talking about guaranteeing a profit at all.
I have several points. Let's not blame organizations for the actions of individuals (given that the organization properly deals with said individual). Let's not blame the whole industry or the whole society for the actions of individuals. If something happened to me at a conference, I won't blame my manager who is not connected to the individual that did it in any way for that - and I won't make them suffer because of that.
Of course there might be a reason to not communicate that and that's completely alright, it's business after all, but let's not make it a default choice, please - let's stay human and be nice to each other.
1) normally it isn't (in Europe at least), but I said that I definitely can see situations when it is (in Europe as well as elsewhere) and I never suggested nor said that there aren't any such situations or that it's negligible
2) I'm not talking about them not having a right to do so nor I'm suggesting they shouldn't; I'm saying that using this right should be properly considered before doing so instead of taking it as a default
3) Most companies (again, in Europe, but I'm pretty sure that in the USA as well) don't have any way to do anything about this mismanagement, most companies are small businesses that don't have enough money for that. Not telling them information like this will mean that they will prefer men or risk going under (because the risk of being catched illegally preferring men could be smaller than that). Do you realise that this directly contributes to pay inequality because hiring woman is more riskful than hiring a man (and no, the risk is not the maternal leave itself, the risk lies in being in a situation that you couldn't properly plan for beforehand)?
4) the business is owned by people, possibly women with exactly the same issues as well, but you suggest they don't have the same rights for safety?
I'm sorry to be rude, but did you read what I wrote? Maybe do it again, more carefully? You sound like I suggest depriving women of that right, but I explicitly said that this is not something I want to suggest.
Seems like people completely forgot that having millions of dollars in investments is not common.
The average business in the Czech Republic makes $900 in profit per month.
As a growing number have pointed out in response to that claim, no... no it isn’t.