Day 154 - 13 Jul 95 - Page 35


     
     1        reflected in the mixture of people who were applying for
     2        the job.
     3
     4   Q.   What was the reason that most people over the age of 20 or
     5        something do not seem to apply for jobs at McDonald's?
     6        A.  As I remember rightly, in Colchester at the time we had
     7        quite a few over 20 year-olds working in the restaurants;
     8        we had Army wives, older people, you know.  I would say,
     9        whilst younger people are attracted to the job more than
    10        older people, we do have older people working in quite a
    11        few restaurants.
    12
    13   MS. STEEL:   If more people over the age of 18 had applied,
    14        would you have taken them on?
    15        A.  I think we would have taken the best people; given our
    16        needs and availability, we would have taken the best people
    17        who applied, whatever their age.
    18
    19   Q.   So there were not many over-18s applying?
    20        A.  Yes.
    21
    22   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  He said that the numbers -----
    23
    24   MS. STEEL:  In proportion to the makeup of the population, 16
    25        and 17 year olds are a tiny proportion of the population,
    26        yet they are making up -----
    27
    28   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  He said a few moments ago that the numbers
    29        employed in that age bracket broadly reflected the numbers
    30        who applied, which in fact had already answered the
    31        question you just put.
    32
    33   MS. STEEL:  Actually, he answered the question again.  I just
    34        wanted to make it explicitly clear that there were not many
    35        over-18s applying.
    36        A.  I did not say that, I believe.
    37
    38   MS. STEEL:  You said "yes", so -----
    39        A.  Did I?   Well, if I did say "yes", what I meant was
    40        that I said there were a reasonable amount of over-18s who
    41        applied, and probably the proportion that we hired
    42        reflected the amount of people -- say, for instance, we had
    43        50 per cent under 18 and 50 per cent over 18, that would
    44        have reflected roughly the amount who applied for the
    45        position, the restriction being what was available and what
    46        we were looking for in terms of availability at the time.
    47
    48   Q.   But in terms of population in Colchester, only a tiny
    49        per cent of the over-18s were interested in applying,
    50        whereas there was a much higher percentage of the 16 to 
    51        17 year olds? 
    52 
    53   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  He has just said that younger people are more
    54        attracted to working at McDonald's.  Then we have to go on
    55        to why that is.  You are going to have a lot of evidence
    56        one way or the other, and you can argue what the reason
    57        is.  It does not surprise me for a moment that if younger
    58        people were more attracted to working at McDonald's ---
    59
    60   MS. STEEL:  Well ------

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