The Hague city council is to introduce anonymous applications for jobs next year after a trial proved successful at boosting the number of people from ethnic minorities who were invited for interviews, broadcaster NOS said.

In total, 1,900 anonymous job applications were made in the 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, NOS said.

The chance of being invited for an interview rose from 5.6% to 9.3% for people with a Moroccan, Turkish, Antillean or Surinamese background, according to research bureau Motivaction, which analysed the results.

More people with a minority background were also successful in the interview, although it is hard to assess if this is due to the anonymous application, Motivaction said.

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.

The SCP sent 504 job applications to 176 different vacancies using various Dutch, Moroccan and Hindustani names. In 34% of cases, the applicants with the Dutch names were invited for an interview, compared with 23% of those with a Hindustani name and 19% of those with a Moroccan name.