Employment

Recruitment: is racism systemic?

According to news reports, civil servants have sent out thousands of bogus job applications to businesses in an effort to expose race discrimination in the recruitment process. The fake job application scheme was devised by the Department of Work and Pensions, the ministry responsible for paying most benefits and trying to get the jobless back into work.

Officials conducted the exercise by putting in two or more applications for each of 1,000 job vacancies using false identities to see whether firms were unfairly rejecting job-hunters with foreign-sounding names. CVs would be similar, but the applications would be signed either with a traditional British name or one that looked as if it belonged to an applicant from an ethnic minority. Employers who offered interviews to the fake applicants were put through to a mobile phone number, where their offer was declined.

Solicitor General, Vera Baird, has said initial results suggested 'there was quite a strong sense that there is race discrimination going on'. Miss Baird, has said the research could lead to an addition to the Equality Bill banning employers from asking for names from applicants before they offer an interview, in an attempt to stamp out such dicrimination.

Do you think race discrimination really is systemic in recruitment?

Do you think there is merit in imposing a no-names rule in the Equality Bill?