The Dutch government has no plans to introduce a large scale trial using anonymous applications for jobs even though an experiment in The Hague proved successful at boosting the number of people from ethnic minorities who were invited for interviews.

A majority of MPs back the idea but civil service minister Stef Blok says there is no real proof that the practice leads to more diversity, news agency ANP said.

Nevertheless, the state recognizes that there may be ‘unconscious prejudice’ among people who are in charge of recruitment and this is why there are training programmes to combat this, the minister said.

In total, 1,900 anonymous job applications were made in the The Hague trial. More people with a minority background applied for jobs – up from 24% to 31% of the total – and more were interviewed for the position they had applied for.

A report by the government’s social policy unit SCP last year showed that people with a ‘white’ Dutch name are almost twice as likely to be invited for an interview as someone with a Moroccan-sounding name.