Undercover job seekers expose huge race bias

**AntRobertson** · 19-10-2009, 11:10 AM

Doubt many will be surprised by this, quite telling though and rather makes mockery of the 'they take our jobs!' mantra

Undercover job seekers expose huge race bias
4:00AM Monday Oct 19, 2009
By Rajeev Syal
A secret Government sting operation targeting hundreds of employers across Britain has uncovered widespread racial discrimination against workers with African and Asian names.

Civil servants sent nearly 3000 job applications for real jobs under false identities in an attempt to discover if employers were discriminating against jobseekers with foreign names.

Using names recognisably from three different communities - Nazia Mahmood, Mariam Namagembe and Alison Taylor - false identities were created with similar experience and qualifications. Every false applicant was given a British education and work histories.

They found that a white applicant would send nine applications before receiving either an invitation to an interview or an encouraging telephone call.
Minority candidates with the same British qualifications and experience had to send 16 applications before receiving a similar response.

The results have prompted Employment Minister Jim Knight to consider barring companies found to have discriminated against employees from applying for Government contracts.

"We suspected there was a problem. This uncovers the shocking scale of the problem," he said. "Candidates with an Asian or African name are facing real discrimination and this has exposed the fact that companies are missing out on real talent."

Researchers from the National Centre for Social Research sent three different applications to 987 actual vacancies between November 2008 and May 2009. Nine different occupations were chosen, ranging from well-qualified positions such as accountants and IT technicians to less well-paid positions such as care workers and sales assistants.

All the job vacancies were in the private, public and voluntary sectors and were based in the cities of Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, London and Manchester.

The report, to be released today, concludes that there was no plausible explanation for the difference in treatment other than racial discrimination.
It also finds that public sector employers were less likely to have discriminated on the grounds of race than those in the private sector. One of the reasons for this discrepancy, according to the conclusion, is the use of standard application forms in the public sector which hide or disguise the ethnicity of an applicant.

- OBSERVER

Dan · 19-10-2009, 11:17 AM

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

Doubt many will be surprised by this, quite telling though and rather makes mockery of the 'they take our jonbs!' mantra

I think you're missing the obvious, Ant. Recruiters have to do this to compensate for the fact that the darkies have already taken the jobs which should in all reason belong to the fine upstanding white people of Albion. They're just trying to right the ship. Give them a medal, I say.

**AntRobertson** · 19-10-2009, 11:22 AM

Originally Posted by Dan

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

Doubt many will be surprised by this, quite telling though and rather makes mockery of the 'they take our jonbs!' mantra

I think you're missing the obvious, Ant. Recruiters have to do this to compensate for the fact that the darkies have already taken the jobs which should in all reason belong to the fine upstanding white people of Albion. They're just trying to right the ship. Give them a medal, I say.

Ahh of course, my apologies how PC and reverse-racist of me!

**dirtydog** · 19-10-2009, 11:20 AM

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

and this has exposed the fact that companies are missing out on real talent."

Real talent? companies run businesses to make a profit, that is their bottom line, the government makes a loss on everything it does so they are probably not the best people to advise businesses and who they should employ.

**Rural Surin** · 19-10-2009, 06:42 PM

Originally Posted by dirtydog

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

and this has exposed the fact that companies are missing out on real talent."

Real talent? companies run businesses to make a profit, that is their bottom line, the government makes a loss on everything it does so they are probably not the best people to advise businesses and who they should employ.

True, that government {generally speaking} doesn't have to adhear to the same 'business practices' that might take form in the {so-called} private sector....but the only reason that government exist is to promote, propagate, rule & regulate, tax, and subsidize 'business'. Government survives if business {private sector} does and vice versa. Overlording becomes their bane....

**Don Juan** · 19-10-2009, 12:22 PM

Glasgow, Leeds, London and Manchester

All cities which have been affected by Islamic terrorists in the last two years & some of them Africans are just plain weird. The last one I worked with wore a black armband to work when Saddam was hung. No wonder nobody wants to work alongside them.

One of the reasons for this discrepancy, according to the conclusion, is the use of standard application forms in the public sector which hide or disguise the ethnicity of an applicant

You'd be hard pushed to find a job application which doesn't ask you your ethnic background, so that bollocks.

**AntRobertson** · 19-10-2009, 12:32 PM

Originally Posted by Don Juan

The last one I worked with wore a black armband to work when Saddam was hung. No wonder nobody wants to work alongside them.

He probably tells his friends about the weird guy he used to work with that used to generalise his actions as being representative of all Africans everywhere.

And then they all have a good giggle at the preposterousness of it.

**Marmite the Dog** · 22-10-2009, 07:44 PM

Originally Posted by Don Juan

One of the reasons for this discrepancy, according to the conclusion, is the use of standard application forms in the public sector which hide or disguise the ethnicity of an applicant

You'd be hard pushed to find a job application which doesn't ask you your ethnic background, so that bollocks.

True. Every company I've applied for jobs with in the UK has to (by law) have a section where you state your ethnicity and religion. It's used for HR to keep a record that they are employing the required number of minorities, even if it means giving jobs to less qualified/skilled people because of their colour as my ex-wife had to do once.

**larvidchr** · 19-10-2009, 12:25 PM

It's way to shallow a survey to be given any credence at all, most employers only think of the bottom line, if employees of different ethnic origin where the best workers they would choose them in a heartbeat, you have to ask the employers why they discarded the applicants they perceived as having different ethnic origins, are they more sick, do they create more problems at the work place, are their performance the same aso. aso.

But I could strongly suspect the civil servants having dreamed this ridiculous little plan up to stir the shit, all are from different ethnic origins themselves, since the civil services to a much higher degree have been forced to employ ethnic minorities.

And it is to say the least not a very scientific survey, but reeks of an agenda, I am pretty sure I could make one that would put Pakistani/African/Rastas in a very bad light by sending out simplified trick questions in an anonymous survey to employers.
After that the headline could be, ethnic minorities are unusable as workers or something like that.

A British friend of mine (who is sadly passed on) told me how he got quite exasperated going back to Britain to deal with some stuff, and going to a Government office he encountered several employees in that office that hardly spoke intelligible English, now I'm pretty sure that some well qualified Brits that could actually speak English was passed over so the office/Government branch in question could fill their ethnic employee quota..

Dan · 19-10-2009, 01:26 PM

Originally Posted by larvidchr

It's way to shallow a survey to be given any credence at all, most employers only think of the bottom line,

How do you know it's "too shallow"? There may be problems with the article but you can't deduce that from Ant's article. And the point of the article, which you seem to have missed, is precisely that employers don't think exclusively of the "bottom line". They think of profits but they also think of other things, which is exactly why Jim Knight said "companies are missing out on real talent." Being a member of the Labour government, and thus a good neoliberal capitalist, he wants companies to do nothing but "think of the bottom line", something which they're clearly failing to do.

Originally Posted by larvidchr

if employees of different ethnic origin where the best workers they would choose them in a heartbeat, you have to ask the employers why they discarded the applicants they perceived as having different ethnic origins, are they more sick, do they create more problems at the work place, are their performance the same aso. aso.

Or perhaps they are all too happy to wallow in the comfort of racist stereotypes.

**Norton** · 19-10-2009, 12:30 PM

Originally Posted by larvidchr

Government office he encountered several employees in that office that hardly spoke intelligible English.

This happens when one hires a Scot.

**dirtydog** · 19-10-2009, 12:40 PM

^Says the man who got his job on the basis of his company being an equal opportunity employer, aint thet right "Ginge"

**AntRobertson** · 19-10-2009, 12:47 PM

Hmmm, rumours of my ginganess have been greatly exaggerated for some reason. Easy target I guess, despite the many pics of me that have been posted on this very forum.

Anyways it's not discrimination when it's gingas, it's commonsense and decency.

**Thetyim** · 19-10-2009, 01:28 PM

It doesn't say how they chose which jobs to apply for.

Was it a shelf stacker in Brixton Tesco or Treasurer for the BNF ?

**AntRobertson** · 19-10-2009, 01:30 PM

Originally Posted by Thetyim

Was it a shelf stacker in Brixton Tesco or Treasurer for the BNF ?

Both positions would require roughly the same qualifications I would think.

Dan · 19-10-2009, 01:42 PM

Originally Posted by Thetyim

Treasurer for the BNF

British Nuclear Fuels? British National Formulary? British Nutrition Foundation?

**dirtydog** · 19-10-2009, 01:47 PM

British National Front? or is that BNP?

**Stinky** · 19-10-2009, 01:50 PM

I've employed ethnics before and found that they often grossly exaggerate
their education, experience and work ability to secure the job on offer.
This usually ended with me sacking them after a day or a week and having to
pay them for substandard work which I couldn't sell on.
Maybe they overexaggerate their abilities because they fear discrimination,
maybe it's a cultural thing where this is the norm in their home counties,
who knows.
But it still leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth for the time and money it's
cost me.
If this survey had bothered to include the employers reasons they might find the
root causes of this so called discrimination.

Also what Don Jaun said about the areas in which this survey was carried out
could hardly be called representative of the UK as a whole, it seems as though
these areas where civil unrest and and terrorist activity have been recent
issues have been actively targeted to increase the bias.

Bollocks survey, total waste of public money.

**crippen** · 19-10-2009, 01:51 PM

I wonder how much this cost the country in total?300 letters ,all to be read,considered,filed and replied to. No wonder UK is in a mess.

**astasinim** · 19-10-2009, 02:13 PM

Originally Posted by Don Juan

One of the reasons for this discrepancy, according to the conclusion, is the use of standard application forms in the public sector which hide or disguise the ethnicity of an applicant

You'd be hard pushed to find a job application which doesn't ask you your ethnic background, so that bollocks.

Very true. Also the public sector has a duty to employ black & ethnic minorities, which represent the make up of the area you live in. So weve established that part of the article is complete twaddle, what about the rest of it?

**Thetyim** · 19-10-2009, 02:02 PM

I have employed blacks before and I found them very hard working and no problems.
I had to fire one because he lied about his criminal record but I would have kept him on if I was making the decision.

Dan · 19-10-2009, 02:03 PM

Outrageous. The government spending money to improve of the lot of its citizens. Whatever next?

**Stinky** · 19-10-2009, 02:08 PM

It's a waste of money if it's not representative, which it clearly isn't.
Deliberately picking cities that already have racial difficulties is just plain stupid

**dirtydog** · 19-10-2009, 02:10 PM

When all this racial equality started in the UK I think it was 2 blacks for every 10 or 8 whites you had to employ, the security company I worked for had about 60 white staff so they needed around 6 black staff to balance it out, now all they had to do was work like 5 nights per week, watch tv or whatever and just stay awake, first 6 blacks were Nigerians, mid 20's, articulate, the only problem was they were students which they forgot to mention, they considered the job as a place to do their homework and studies, which is fine and quite admirable, sadly they also considered it their place of sleep as they can't really get away with sleeping in college, doesn't go down too well with the customers though

Dan · 19-10-2009, 02:22 PM

Originally Posted by Shitdigit

t's a waste of money if it's not representative, which it clearly isn't.

That's right. I'm sure if they had sent the letters to some village in Norfolk they would have found it a Shangri-La of racial tolerance. After all, everyone knows how open to outsiders the rural English are.

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