Ad looking for ‘Caucasian’ Santa Claus taken down

An ad looking for a “Caucasian” Santa Claus has been taken down after garnering criticisms online. The advertisement appears to be put up on behalf of entertainment agency Essential Talent, which has denied it specified the race of its Father Christmas.

Twitter user Amy Who? posted a screenshot of the online advertisement on Monday, captioning it simply with “No black Santa’s allowed.” [sic]

In the ad, which was posted on the jobseeker site Indeed, offered to pay successful applicants a pay range of $40 to $50 an hour. It had specified a few characteristics that the applicants must possess, including a current Police or Working with Children Clearance. It also asked for a white Santa.

“We are looking for Caucasian mature age men to play the role of Father Christmas for part-time positions this Christmas season in Adelaide City and metropolitan areas,” the ad reads.

The Twitter user, Adelaide resident Amy Hourigan, has explained to the ABC that she posted it because she believed it was unnecessary to specifically call for a Caucasian man to play Santa as the role could be played by anyone.

“We do so many things out of ‘tradition,’ some people are so adamant that everything must stay the same as it always has been,” she said. “But why can’t there be a black Santa? I think many children and their families would love to see their skin colour represented on Santa.

“Maybe if we start breaking tradition the world will be a better place and even more people will have a wonderful Christmas.”

Meanwhile, the company looking for Santa, Essential Talent, has denied that it had specifically asked for a Caucasian Santa as the questioned word was not in the original text that was sent to job search providers. A spokeswoman from the company said she did not include the word when she wrote the job description sent to websites.

“Someone has doctored it,” she said. “It’s definitely incorrect.

Essential Talent told the ABC in a separate statement that it was “a casting agency, casting all sorts of roles with specific requirement,” further explaining that the ad was “one of those jobs.”

Indeed has since removed the ad from its site, denying that it was responsible for wording of the job ad submitted to it.

“Thousands of small businesses across Australia post jobs to our site through a self-serve model,” the spokeswoman from the job-searching website said. “We do not have access to edit self-serve ads. Jobs on Indeed must be made available to qualified candidates regardless of age, race, gender and sexual orientation."