Single White Recruitment Agency

The BBC has released a report today about its findings from recruitment and letting agencies in the West of England and the racism that lies just under the surface. “Of 30 temping agencies contacted by an Inside Out West researcher, 25 agreed to a request for a receptionist job to be offered only to white workers.“{source bbc news}. Quite frankly having read today’s news on the bbc whilst I am disgusted that people still do not follow discrimination laws I am not completely shocked by the results of the research. In a country where members of the royal family feel its acceptable to dress as a Nazi at a fancy dress party or using racist language openly is it any great surprise that this sort of institutional racism exists within the recruitment industry?

From my personal experience in the recruitment industry I have seen many inexperienced recruiters take positions that have ‘stipulations’ from the client that blatantly break the law but they are desperate to take the job on their books and therefore do not challenge the client and agree to meeting their criteria.

Does the blame lie with the recruiter for taking the job on those terms or the employer for asking for them? Well really it’s down to the recruitment agency as they should be aware of the current employment laws. A gentle reminder of the law should be enough to make the potential client back track or go elsewhere. Would you really want a racist on your books anyway, I know I wouldn’t.

Discrimination of any nature, and in this case racism, should not be tolerated. There is no excuse and you cannot ascribe it to simple niavity but sadly I feel that racism is still active in British society but just cloaked in respectability. Unfortunately iff you listen to the clips on the BBC link it doesn’t sound as if all the recruiters are junior to the industry. It’s this sort of behaviour that gets recruitment such a bad name. I hope the BBC names and shames those involved.