Black and other ethnic minority workers are more than twice as likely to be unemployed than white staff, according to analysis from the TUC.
Women from ethnic minorities are hit even harder, facing an unemployment rate of nearly three times that of white men.
The union body looked at the most recent labour figures from the Office for National Statistics, and found that the unemployment rate for Black and ethnic minority workers was 6.9%, compared to 3.2% for white workers.
The unemployment rate for women from ethnic minorities was 8.1%, it revealed, compared to 2.8% for white women.
Employment chances for workers from ethnic minorities are worse now in comparison to white counterparts than they were in 2008, the TUC claimed.
Race and unemployment
Three-quarters of ethnic minorities don’t have a workplace pension
In 2008, Black and ethnic minority workers were 2.1 times more likely to be unemployed than white workers, compared to 2.2 times in 2023.
The TUC begins its Black Workers’ Conference today (26 May). General-secretary Paul Nowak said that racism still played “a huge part” in today’s job market.
“Ministers must take bold action to confront this inequality. The obvious first step is forcing bigger companies to disclose their ethnicity pay gaps. This will make employers confront the inequalities in their own workforces – and act to fix them,” he said.
“Business and unions are united in their support for compulsory pay gap monitoring. Ministers must bring it in without delay.”
The TUC analysis comes as a survey from EDGE Empower, a diversity software specialist, reveals that workers between the ages of 50 and 64 are least likely to believe there are higher levels of discrimination against ethnic minorities at work.
Its research found that 85% of workers from this age group said workers from Black and ethnic minority backgrounds face no greater discrimination in getting a new job than their white colleagues, compared to 51% of 18 to 24-year-olds who felt this to be the case.
Seventeen percent of the older age group believed that white employees faced a higher level of discrimination, it claimed.
Aniela Unguresan, founder of EDGE Certified Foundation, said senior executives needed to champion intergenerational collaboration to bridge this divide in outlook.
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“The time is now for organisations to both engage with these issues and understand where different generations converge and where they diverge in their values and expectations,” she said.
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