MARCH 10 — The recent study by Cent-GPS on racial discrimination in private sector recruitment has provoked many responses.
I bet many are angered by such discrimination and have many brilliant ideas on how to fix it. I just want to highlight two things about that study by Cent-GPS:
First, the report states on page 12 that it is based on an earlier study done by Lee Hwok Aun and Muhammad Abdul Khalid, which was published in Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, 2016.
Guess what? While the earlier study was prepared by two researchers, the Cent-GPS report only highlighted the Malay researcher in the sub-headline, “The Work by University Malaya's Dr Muhammad Abdul Khalid”. The Chinese researcher's name, Lee Hwok Aun, was dismissed.
Not only that, the sub-headline stated that Muhammad Abdul Khalid was from University of Malaya. This is wrong. Lee Hwok Aun was the researcher from University of Malaya, while Muhammad Abdul Khalid was from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
UM ranked 87 and UKM 184, according to QS Global World Ranking. If Cent-GPS wanted to give prestige to the earlier study that their own study was based on by attaching a UM researcher to it, then it should be Lee Hwok Aun who was from UM.
So, Cent-GPS's study decries racial discrimination but attributed a bi-authored study to only the Malay researcher and omittted the Chinese researcher's name from the sub-headline?
Second, one of the most significant findings from the earlier study by Lee Hwok Aun and Muhammed Abdul Khalid was that the Malay-controlled private companies also preferred Chinese jobseekers over Malays. They profiled the company to find out the race factor involved.
As cited in Cent-GPS's own study, page 12: “Even companies that were Malay-controlled called Chinese applicants 1.6 times more than they called Malay applicants.”
Even though the companies' ethnic profile is important, Cent-GPS's own study did not include this aspect. Its reason, stated on page 42, is to ensure randomness in company selection.
Their reason does not make sense for a study on ethnic bias. Company's ethnic profile will shed light on whether private sector recruitment really practised racial discrimination or are some other unobserved factors at play?
If even Malay-controlled companies prefer to hire Chinese rather than Malay, as discovered in the earlier study by Lee and Mohammad, then this is not simply racial prejudice but involves other social stereotypical biases.
Therefore, the Cent-GPS's study is a missed opportunity to further explore the very important question, if Malay-controlled companies also prefer to recruit non-Malays, then what other factors are at play and what kind of resolution is needed?
Besides, without including the company's profile, and given that the general (mis)perception in Malaysia society that the private sector is controlled by the Chinese, then the Cent-GPS's conclusion may have inculcated further inter-racial suspicion and animosity among the different races. If true, this would be very ironic for a study that aims to highlight and close the racial gap.
We must address the issue of racial discrimination in recruitment not only in private sector but all sectors. Meanwhile, addressing ethnic prejudice cannot only be confined to race and ignore other social stereotypical biases.
Incomplete diagnosis does not fix the problem but often produces consequences which may make the matter worse.
* All views, thoughts and opinions expressed belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author's employer or organisation.
