Meaning
Paid positions, contracts or other benefits handed out on the basis of friendship, loyalty or party connection rather than merit; patronage for insiders. The phrase is disparaging, implying a closed circle - originally 'the boys' - that looks after its own while better-qualified outsiders are passed over. Almost always accusatory; standard vocabulary for reporting on quangos, public boards and political appointments. Related but distinct from the American spoils system. Jobs for the girls is a later feminist twist on the same formula. Regional use: Earliest recorded uses American; now chiefly British, Irish and Australian English.
Origin
Although the phrase now sounds quintessentially British, The Phrase Finder's earliest citation is American: the Syracuse Herald of New York, October 1913 - 'Party government isn't organized for efficiency, nor to serve the people. It is organized to provide jobs for the boys.' The site reports the phrase was previously used widely in the USA, classes it under its 'Born in the USA' label, and found no UK usage until well into the twentieth century; a 1918 United Illuminating Company advertisement used the same words in a different, patriotic sense, promising new jobs for demobilized servicemen. The British patronage sense became dominant later, and British satire cemented the association: the Yes Minister episode 'Jobs for the Boys' (first broadcast 7 April 1980) has minister Jim Hacker stumble into a doomed building project and discover 'that it takes two to quango'. Wiktionary defines the phrase as jobs unfairly given to someone's friends, supporters or relations and cross-refers to old boy network and cronyism. No OED factsheet exists for the phrase as a headword, so the 1913 first-use dating rests on The Phrase Finder's newspaper research.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a job for the boys
- jobs for the girls
Usage Examples
- The minister denied the appointments were jobs for the boys, insisting every candidate had faced an open competition.
- Critics say the arts quango has become a byword for jobs for the boys, with half its board drawn from the chairman's former department.
- If the vacancy is never advertised, people will assume it is a job for the boys.