The South African recruitment industry recently was under fire after Bheki Cele, the police minister said that the South African Police Services (SAPS) would not employ people with tattoos as they had a “tendency of being a gangster”. Labor expert Derrick Thalavirsan of HR Support Services said that Cele’s utterances are problematic and unfortunate for a number of reasons. “The minister has not referenced any scientific research that correlates tattooed people with gangsters, and the use of unscientific criteria in recruitment practices could be viewed as ‘arbitrary’”.
