Indicating Race in a Job Application Form

Have you ever applied for a job in Malaysia and been asked to indicate your race?

A popular beverage chain in Malaysia ran into some trouble last year over a job ad that stated a preference for Chinese and Malay applicants. Is the inference that other races would not be given the same consideration, assuming no requirement on language proficiency applies?

In some countries, it is not illegal for an employer to collect information on your race, as they are regulated by laws to report and expressly demonstrate that they have not been racially biased in their hiring. But they are not allowed to make a hiring decision based on race.

There are no similar laws in Malaysia on collecting such information (personal data protection aside), nor are there any race discrimination laws. In fact, our own politicians have debated on the necessity of maintaining race as a question in official forms - to no outcome.

But many organisations in Malaysia do ask for the purpose of, for instance, monitoring racial quotas imposed by the government for their operating licences. However, quotas do not apply to all sectors, so the query remains whether its still relevant or appropriate to ask in these industries.

Does declaring your race hurt or help your chances of employment?

Unfortunately, sometimes you simply don't have a choice and there is limited research in the region on how race impacts hiring, with the exception of one local study which received considerable press coverage, finding racially discriminatory practices applied to Chinese and Malay applicants of similar qualifications.

On a sidenote, in doing our research, we also searched for content on race in job applications for Singapore and the results yielded were for job vacancies at the Singapore F1, GP and Turf Club..

All this aside, find out what it's like to work with employers you're interested in.

Want to share your views on your job too? We'd love to hear from you.