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 ------
