According to a survey conducted by the Institute of Policy Studies and OnePeople.sg, a national body for inter-racial and inter-religious understanding in Singapore, a large number of Malays and Indians in the island nation feel discriminated against while applying for jobs.
The findings of the paper titled IPS-OnePeople.sg Indicators of Racial Religious Harmony: Comparing Results from 2018 and 2013 were released on Tuesday.
According to the report, 73 per cent of Malays and 68 per cent of Indians felt that they had experienced discrimination when it came to applying for a job – a figure that has increased since 2013. In contrast, only 38 per cent of Chinese expressed the same sentiment.
This may partly be due to greater awareness of the presence of discriminatory behaviour in the workplace and how this might have affected some minorities, researchers Mathew Mathews, Leonard Lim and Shanthini Selvarajan said in the paper.
In total, 4,015 Singaporeans and permanent residents were polled on issues ranging from aspects of their racial and religious identity, to their experiences of living in a multi-racial society, and their attitudes towards social and political issues.
One People.sg has said that it will work with employers through the Singapore National Employers Federation, and the Tripartite Alliance For Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) – to address racial discrimination at work.