Racial Bias Seen in Hiring of Waiters

[AlphaCentauri]

High-end restaurants in New York discriminate based on race when hiring waiters, a new study has concluded. The study was based on experiments in which pairs of job applicants with similar resumes were sent to apply for jobs. The pairs of applicants were matched for gender and appearance, said Marc Bendick Jr., the economist who conducted the study. The only difference was race.

White job applicants were more likely to receive follow-up interviews at the restaurants, be offered jobs, given information about jobs, and not have their work histories investigated in detail, he said.

“There really should not be a lot of difference in how the two of them are treated,” Mr. Bendick said. He was hired by advocacy groups for restaurant workers as part of a larger report called “The Great Service Divide: Occupational Segregation and Equality in the New York City Restaurant Industry. He has made a career of studying discrimination, ranging from racism in the advertising industry to sexism in firefighting.

Mr. Bendick, said that with most industries, such experiments typically found discrimination 20 to 25 percent of the time. With New York restaurants, it was found 31 percent of the time.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/racial-bias-seen-in-hiring-of-waiters/

[NightWatcher]

1. restaurants like to hire "the beautiful people". to suck up to the clients

(see Hooters not hiring the flat-chested)

[SoCalDem]

3. and the people handing out the paychecks, have the final say in whom they hire

the boss may have a preference for tall blonde women or short muscular men..Look around.. you rarely see 45 year old "chubby" people.. (Last night we went out to eat, and three waitresses there could have been triplets..all tall cute blondes)

There's a hair salon near where I live, and there's not one white hairstylist there..

Someone always makes the final choice, and whomever is not chosen, has been discriminated against...for some reason..

[-..__...]

4. Why is it that Chinese, Japanese, Thai, etc establishments,,,

rarely (if ever), hire non-Asians? :shrug:

[LuvNewcastle]

2. I worked in the service industry

for 20 years and most of the time the waitstaff would be almost all white, while most of the cooks, dishwashers, etc. were mostly black guys.

[SoCalDem]

5. a lot of it has to do with the "social graces"

and the low wages paid for "kitchen help". Someone with little or no education is also likely to be poor and awkward when speaking to people. Often, the waitresses/waiters are college kids or "children-of" managers/owners/investors. They do share tips though, so the busboys & kitchen people get some extra..

It's not fair, but it's always been that way..

[LuvNewcastle]

6. You're right.

I wish I had a nickel for every cook that told me he'd never be able to wait tables because of all the complaining assholes. I said I'd never be able to work in that hot kitchen every day.

[dustbunnie]

7. That's quite shocking.

Wait staff in NYC certainly "seems" to be diverse at medium and higher end establishments, at least to the naked eye. The real criteria appears to be physical beauty, IMO. Most wait staff are actors waiting for the big break, so they tend to be gorgeous, thin, tall, and look hip. Most can belt out a happy birthday like Ethel Merman. Some old school high end places, I'm thinking Italian restaurants specifically, sometimes seem to be stocked with middle-aged men wait-staff who know the menu, inside out and are totally efficient and businesslike. The places that appear to hire grumpy, middle-aged, not overwhelmingly gorgeous staff seem to be Jewish delis.