Employment Criteria

Abstract

This article reports on three small-scale studies into criteria used by employers in the selection of labour in western Sydney. Study 1 was a questionnaire study into the criteria used to select staff by, inter alios, employers of motor mechanics, metal tradesmen, unskilled factory workers, and clerical workers and typists. Study 2 was a sintulated questionnaire case study in which a number of factors possibly related to the selection of a female junior clerk were systematically varied. Study 3 was a 'role play' study involving an inter view for the selection of a female junior clerk. Criteria found important include age, previous work history, personality and appearance, and attitude to work. It is believed that the consistency of the findings across the studies suggest certain strong hypotheses. The primary hypothesis is that whether or not an employer is consciously discriminating on a social basis, his or her use of an 'efficiency' rationale will lead to a bias towards the selection of persons brought up in families with a so-called 'middle-class' background. This hypothesis, if it were true, has discriminatory implications where labour from areas of different social mix, such as the western Sydney local government areas of Blacktown and Baulkham Hills, meets in competition in a common employment region, such as Parramatta. The difficulties of finding work for Blacktown youth of substantially non-middle-class background, already severe because of a shortage of demand relative to supply of labour, could be accentuated by the possible operation of a social factor through an 'efficiency' rationale.