12/29/2006

'Non Indians Preferred'

'Non Indians Preferred' IT Manager N Prasannakumar was fuming when he read this in an advertisement by Frontline Technologies on 21 Dec in JobStreet.com. I too will. No Human Resource Personnel, even an assistant, will put up such an advert for jobs in Singapore. It is taboo. It is common knowledge. The Ministry of Manpower, the MSM, within the Human Resource community, in Human Resource Depts, this is a topic that has been hammered over and over again. Even JobStreet.com has no reason to repeat such a mistake. How did it occurred? It was a mistake, said Frontline Tech HR Manager Tong Suit Ping, probably a FT or a new citizen. That may explain why it happened though not necessary the case. Race discrimination is a very sensitive issue to all Singaporeans. No Singaporean will pass such an advert up for print unless it is intentional to create mischief. In this particular case, race discrimination was less likely to be an issue as Tong Suit Ping said the project team has 3 Indians, 3 Chinese and one Filipino. For such a lapse, I am very agreeable with the word fine. Fine must be slammed at any organisation violating this ruling, written or unwritten, legal or not yet legal. And the Media, MSM or dotcom, must be fined even more for allowing it to be in print.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You obviously haven't looked hard enough. Flip the pages of the Classifieds, and you will easily find job ads that specifically state "Chinese preferred". It's even more prevalent in the online job sites. Meritocracy in Singapore is obviously a farce.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

they could for example specify chinese language or arabic essential for certain position when the specific needs required.

there are many ways of putting it without specify race or religion that are more acceptable to everyone.