A study conducted by BBC shows that people with Muslim names will have more difficulty in finding a job. It was found that an individual with a Muslim-sounding name would get a job offer in one out of three cases.
As studied and reported by BBC, two CVs that contained identical experiences and skills were sent from Inside Out London. The only thing that differed was the name: one was "Mohamed" and another "Adam."
Mohamed and Adam, the two fake candidates, applied for 100 job opportunities as business managers in the advertising industry. Mohamed received four interview offers while Adam received 12.
Furthermore, the fake CVs were also posted on four job sites. Two recruiters contacted Mohamed, while Adam was contacted by four.
A University of Bristol professor analyzed the findings and commented that it was worse than he thought and not what he expected. He stated that out of three cases, a person with a Muslim-sounding name would be offered an interview only once.
He added that he initially thought that the Muslim-sounding name would receive less than 50 percent of the responses. Given that London is a diverse city, the results were worse than he thought, reports BBC.
The findings of the study support the conclusions in other similar research. For instance, a study by the University of Bristol's Research Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship found that Muslim men are 76 percent less likely to be given employment compared to white counterparts.
The UK's university admissions service called Ucas will begin a trial for name-blind applications this year. It removes the names of applicants, leaving only one's skill and experience to be judged.
Even in terms of business owners and entrepreneurs, discrimination is affecting growth. Jobs & Hire reported last April 2016 that minority-owned businesses added to the 72.3 percent of jobs that were created by private companies.
These businesses have the potential of growing and adding more jobs if discrimination was out of the picture. Read more about it here.
