Think tank defends methodology in survey on racial discrimination

The recent survey by think tank Cent-GPS found that Malay and Indian jobseekers are more likely to face discrimination than their Chinese counterparts. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: A think tank which recently undertook a survey on jobseekers has denied any motive to stoke tension among the various ethnic groups.

Centre for Governance and Political Studies (Cent-GPS) senior researcher Zaidel Baharuddin said the results, published last week, were meant to highlight the need to break away from the duopoly narrative of the two largest ethnic groups in the country.

“There are also minority groups whose plight and concerns should be included in national discussions such as this,” he told FMT.

The survey found that Malay and Indian jobseekers are more likely to face discrimination than their Chinese counterparts.

The researchers had posed as applicants from the three major ethnic groups, all with the same qualifications among other criteria.

Seberang Perai municipal councillor Joshua Woo, however, said the study had not included the companies’ ethnic profiles.

Although the think tank said this was to ensure that companies were selected at random, Woo said the ethnic profiles of companies would shed light on whether private sector recruitment really practises racial discrimination or if there are other unobserved factors at play.

He also said that addressing ethnic prejudice should not be confined solely to race, to the exclusion of other social stereotypical biases.

Zaidel Baharuddin.

“An incomplete diagnosis does not fix the problem but often produces consequences which may make the matter worse,” he said.

Zaidel said it was possible to attribute the gap between candidates with regards to interview call-ups to social stereotyping.

“However, even if we were to put the blame on stereotyping, Thivakar, the Indian male candidate, would still be the victim in which he would have to face the brunt of inequity regarding these practices.

“We don’t think that racial stereotyping should be an acceptable excuse to justify the gross disadvantage that an Indian male candidate may face in the job market.

“Racial stereotyping may be good material for a joke, or a comedic routine, but we don’t think it should be an influential factor in determining the future well-being of a young Malaysian.”

He added that the think tank was not trying to make a connection between the ethnic ownership of a company and a particular job offer.

“We were more interested in finding out whether a candidate’s name, ethnicity and looks might play a big role in determining their chances of scoring an interview with regards to the market in general,” he said.

In the study, he said, the think tank used an online job portal to send in the applications. Therefore, job selection was based on recommendations by the website’s algorithm going by the candidates’ online profiles, vacancies that matched their academic qualifications, and those that could be applied for by all seven of them.

“We did not intentionally look for companies that are dominated by a certain ethnicity to make conclusions from that.

“We also believe that most jobseekers will go for the job that suits them, not those where the company is owned by those of the same ethnicity.” - FMT