Of those employed, a third of them had experienced discrimination in the workplace. A large portion of them believed this was due to their race, colour, accent or having an ethnic name. The half who had not experienced discrimination stated that they were aware that Sri Lankans faced discrimination in the workplace. The most commonly reported sources of discrimination were employers (65.5%), recruitment consultants (56.4%), general public (27%), employees (20%) and Work and Income New Zealand (20%) (Basnayake, 1999). 3.2 HR Professionals and Recruitment Consultants’ Experiences A group of human resource professionals and recruitment consultants provided information about discrimination facing all New Zealanders searching for employment (Burns, 2000). When asked if they felt that people faced unfair barriers to employment, 95% of the respondents said yes. Two of the most cited reasons for the discrimination can be broadly related to Asian people: nonNew Zealand accent (70%) and different culture (57%). Half of the respondents believed Asians to specifically face discrimination (compared to 37% who nominated Pacific people and 32% who thought Māori were targeted). Slightly fewer than 40% of respondents reported having first hand experience of discrimination towards Asians, which differed significantly between HR professionals (31%) and recruitment consultants (54%). Managers and clients of the professionals/consultants were overwhelmingly identified as being the perpetrators of discrimination (88%). Another significant finding was that 25% of respondents reported that recruitment consultants themselves had been found to discriminate against clients. One recruitment consultant offered this as a potential explanation: “I would say that 75 percent of clients we deal with discriminate when they describe what they want in an employee. Because the client pays us to find that employee, we in turn have to discriminate every day. It is morally and ethically against our views but the bottom line is the company‟s needs.” Source: Burns, 2000 3.3 Wearing Your Ethnicity on Your Sleeve In a series of innovative studies, a research group at Auckland University’s School of Business was able to clearly illustrate that Asian people are not given equal access to 12