Are Malay Graduates And Job Seekers Being Discriminated In Malaysia?
"Employers perceive Malays negatively, think that they have lower-quality education and always have the safety net in the form of government jobs to fall back on... Chinese resumes received a 22.1% callback rate on average while Malay resumes received 4.2% callback rate on average...
Malay resumes stating proficiency in Chinese get higher callback rates...
Calculated callback rates among Chinese, foreign and Malay-controlled companies. Malays get lower callback rates in ALL of them.
Even Malay-controlled companies favour Chinese applicants 1.6 times more than Malays...
Cultural compatibility and language ability matters. Employers with predominantly Chinese employees perceive that Malays are less likely to take jobs offered anyway (or quit within a few months), as Malays have the tendency to feel uncomfortable in these settings. The researchers theorise that Malays prefer environments where their religious customs and spoken language in work environment are catered to.
Malay applicants are negatively prejudged. This explains why BA Chinese get higher callback rates than AA Malays. No conclusive reasons are given, except that the negative stereotypes may be reinforced by past experience and lack of contact between these two groups to prove otherwise.
Appears to be the result of pro-Malay affirmative actions. People tend to think that Malays have lower-quality education and higher opportunities in the public sector anyway. This is a very complex issue, and further research are needed, but the researchers suggest that pro-Malay policies may in fact hurt Malay graduates’ job prospects."
What does it say if even Malay companies discriminate against Malays? Why is there "Chinese Privilege" in Malaysia, even with Malay companies?
What do you call a stereotype that's been backed up by experience?
Malaysian Friend: "Because there is no way to guarantee the kualiti of malay applicants in Bolehland? I hear stories of malay students getting into universities with piss poor grades and lecturers getting told to give passing grades to malays even with failing scores. Whereas most Chinese won't get into their preferred courses unless they have great grades and can't cruise their way to graduation"
Comments on post:
"I once was a recruiter. Yes. Companies can be racist. Some for solid reasons (have to diversify workforce or else everyone end up taking leave at the same time during Raya/CNY/Diwali)"
"as time passes and statistics are compiled, the market develop tendencies to isolate the best practices in order to maximize the chances to get good employees (so they can keep recruitment costs to a minimum). If statistics (and history) show that Malays are more likely to be bad employees, then said companies will shy from hiring Malays. Its that simple. Don't be so surprised, this system exist in the banks' loan systems as well. Things like race are definitely factored into risk calculations, and these numbers didint come about because some racist guy decided to put a higher random number on a race he/she didint like. These come from statistics painstaking compiled and refined by processes costing millions of dollars."
"This isn't discrimination, this is preference based on employees' experience with non Malay employees. One example, among many: Malay ladies need to go home to "masak untuk suami" while the Chinese mothers stayed back longer."
"I used to work for a Malay own company, and they favour on hiring non Malays more than
Malays. And the reason that my boss gave me was "melayu Malas."" [Ed: Malas = Lazy]
"How do you hire someone who considers it haram to shake people's hands?"
"Even Indonesian workers working here say that you pay a Malay RM10, he gives u only RM1 worth of work."
Addendum: The paper is "Discrimination of high degrees: race and graduate hiring in Malaysia"