discrimination on the labour market

The low level of education and regional inequalities introduced in the previous chapter are both possible reasons for the extremely high rate of unemployment among Romas but they do not offer complete and sufficient explanation for the striking disproportion in the rate of Roma – non-Roma unemployment. In the course of the Gallup Institution’s 1997 intolerance survey[1] 50% of those asked said that they dislike Ronas. It would be naive to suppose that this intolerance towards Romas does not appear in the workplaces as well. However, it is extremely hard to disclose these prejudices on the labour market, especially is we want to enforce legal sanctions. There is however particular data that convincingly proves the presence of ethnic discrimination that forces Romas out of the Hungarian labour market. Whilst at the end of 1993 the rate of unemployment of non-Romas with less than 8 years of education was 23,1%, this number was 59% in the case of Romas! This rate is 17,5% for non-Romas with 8 years of education and 48,7% for Romas with the same level if education. The differences are just as large in vocational training and in matriculation[2]. The Hungarian Helsinki Committee in its 1996 publication[3] reports that they are in possession of information that confirms that employees have requested employment agencies not to send them Roma candidates. According to the publication, several employment centres registered – unofficially of course – the ethnical race of their clients.

The one and only Roma administrator of the Budapest Job Centre reported of similar experiences with employers in the columns of the Népszabadság in February 2002. According to the report the Budapest Job Centre does not track the origin of the unemployed, as it is against the Data protection law, but despite this employers turning to the Centre would often like to exclude Romas from their candidates. It is most often via the telephone that employers indicate that they do not wish to employ a “brown individual”. The administrator believes that the Centre could only step up against this discrimination if the employer would clearly admit that he had rejected a candidate because he or she was a Roma. However, noone states this on their order-form.[4]

In 2001 our Bureau carried out an investigation at the branch offices of the Budapest Job Centre.[5] The aim of the investigation was to examine the assertion of human rights and the prohibition of discrimination in the world of labour, more specifically in the daily practice of the branch offices. In the course of the investigation we have asked both the admnistrators of 11 branch offices in the capital and the unemployed who have turned to them. We have asked the administrators about how successfully they could allot a Roma candidate for a job. 30% of them have experienced that employers often ask them not to send them Roma candidates to the given workplace. 24% of those asked said that this only seldom happened. Another 24% said that they have never been requested not to send a Roma candidate to fill a job vacancy.

In those cases, where the employer requested no to be sent Roma candidates, 6% of those asked write down this request, 32% remembered it but did not make a written remark of it. According to 12% of those asked, in cases like these nothing should and nothing can be done to serve the interest of Romas. 24 adminitrators of the Job Centre (48%) tried to convince the employer to renounce his request not to be sent Roma candidates. Despite the employer’s request 13 administrators (26%) tried to allot Roma candidates for jobs. 70% of the Centre’s administrators found that the alloted Roma candidate, in accordance with the original request of the employer was not employed. According to 20% the phenomenon that the alloted Romas are not employed occurs frequently, and 12% says that it can be considered a general phenomenon.[6]

In several cases unemployed people try to seek work by themselves, through newspaper advertisements and friends instead of truning to the Job Centre. Based on the types of complaints that arrive to our Bureau, we have found that discrimination against Romas is most common in the porocess of applying for a job. I.e. the Roma candidate does not even have the chance to prove that he is fit for the given vacancy.