Posh Test For Top Firms?

A government study found that young people from working-class backgrounds are not being considered for jobs at elite firms.

18:29 16 June 2015

A government study has found that elite firms continue to exclude young people from working-class backgrounds when hiring. Carried out for the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, the study reviewed 13 elite law, accountancy, and financial services firms. Based on the figures, 70% of the employees that were hired by these firms graduated from fee-paying or selective state schools. The study also found that nearly 40% of graduate trainees at law firms were from fee-paying schools. 

 

Alan Milburn, the chairman of the commission, has accused the firms of imposing a “poshness test.”

 

"This research shows that young people with working-class backgrounds are being systematically locked out of top jobs," the former Labour cabinet minister said.

 

"Elite firms seem to require applicants to pass a 'poshness test' to gain entry.

 

"Inevitably that ends up excluding youngsters who have the right sort of grades and abilities but whose parents do not have the right sort of bank balances.

 

"In some top law firms, trainees are more than five times likely to have attended a fee-paying school than the population as a whole.

 

"They are denying themselves talent, stymying young people's social mobility and fuelling the social divide that bedevils Britain."