From “reversed quota” to “ invisible quota” in the recruitment of the descendants of immigrants for public service jobs

Abstract

Through a qualitative comparison study of the hiring of the descendants of immigrants for public service jobs in France and in the Netherlands, this article highlights the selection mechanisms implemented by local human resources personnel in the local government in two small towns, one in the Netherlands and one in France. We observed how the respective recruitment politics were designed to improve the visibility and presence of the descendants of migrants in local public services. Our results demonstrate that these two localities use very different methods to recruit the descendants of immigrants: French local authorities used “invisible quotas”, and Dutch local authorities used “reversed quotas.” They followed two different accounting systems, which in turn had diverse effects on the redefinition of the desired skillset.

Keywords

• Recruitment
• quotas
• diversity
• comparison
• local public authorities
• discrimination