Firms Should Stop Imposing Biased Criteria In Recruitment

Jack · May 31, 2006, 5:34am

Source: http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v3/news.php?id=200833

May 30, 2006 21:13 PM

KUALA LUMPUR, May 30 (Bernama) – Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, Tuesday described the requirement on proficiency in Mandarin in the recruitment of new staff by private firms as biased and must be discontinued.

The Deputy Prime Minister said matters pertaining to recruitment were the prerogative of the employers but they must be more open and not place certain conditions.

“When I look at the advertisements (in the newspapers) there are private companies which place conditions that applicants must be proficient in Mandarin, this indirectly has created a bias (towards a particular group),” he said when winding up the debate on the Ninth Malaysia Plan (9MP) for the Prime Minister’s Department at the Dewan Negara.

Najib advised non-Bumiputera companies to be more open in taking workers who graduated from local institutions of higher learning.

“Bumiputera too can give their loyalty when it comes to work,” he said.

Earlier, he said that the number of graduates had increased from 45,000 in 2000 to 85,000 in 2005.

According to the Graduate Tracking Study for Public Institutions of Higher Learning (IPTA), 32 percent of graduates were still unemployed six months after having graduated in 2005.

“Usually, the percentage will decline as most of them would gain employment after that period,” Najib said.

He said that in a move to resolve the unemployment problem among graduates, the universities would draw up an academic program and develop curriculum based on the market needs to ensure that they would gain employment.

Under the program, students would be given early exposure to work environment through attachment programmes for a minimum of four months with active support from the industry and the employers association.

– BERNAMA

williamting · May 31, 2006, 6:07am

This is an interesting remark by DPM. Why should he think that Bumi cannot be proficient in Mandarin? I know one Malay boy who took Chinese at SPM and scored a 1! There are so many other examples whereby Bumi actually excel in Mandarin. In one Chung Hua Primary school (in Lutong), the non Chinese population is very high. Perhaps a better remark is to encourage more non-Chinese speaking children to be enrolled in Chinese School. There is nothing to lose by doing this.

ian · May 31, 2006, 6:15am

Agreed, I myself know of lots of bumis highly proficient in Mandarin (or several Chinese dialagues).

If we’re talking biasness here, you should look into how certain government run agencies hire people.

Friends & family of staffmembers > priority
Unknown but qualified candidates > trash.

Jack · May 31, 2006, 6:20am

I guess the DPM hasn’t watched much TV or read much newspapers these days. China is on the rising, and other powerful countries are already seeing this opportunity to tap into a bigger market by offering Mandarin classes in their own universities, etc. I guess by making that remark is just pure ignorance for the well-being of us Malaysians. What about the hiring of Korean/Japanese speaking people you see in local newspaper for ads put up by Nippon Oil and the likes? :roll:

relaxjack · May 31, 2006, 8:46am

Ignorant fool he is. talking for the sake of talking. to me, it is similar to other requirements like for example, “sound computer knowledge”, “good command of english”, “can speak japanese”, etc. the job requires a person to have such knowledge and hence they advertise for it. There are other extreme cases of bias and racist criteria our DPM forgot to mention but knowledge of mandrin is certainly not one of them.