A new report has outlined ten ways to increase ethnic minority people’s employment prospects.
The National Employment Panel (NEP) report, Increasing the Employment and Business Growth of Ethnic Minority and Faith Groups, Enterprising People, Enterprising Places makes 10 main recommendations to improve ethnic minority people’s employment rates, including:
Better targeting of resources to five cities, where two-thirds of ethnic minorities live – London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leicester, and Leeds/Bradford
An integrated, employer-led employment and skills framework in each of the five cities
Outreach support focused on those people of minority ethnic origin currently excluded from the labour market.
The NEP also recommends that English for speakers of other languages provision should be better targeted through the Learning and Skills Council, and that centres of vocational excellence for entrepreneurship should be established to develop the talent and entrepreneurship of ethnic minority communities.
The government will work to develop proposals for implementing the report’s main recommendations, building on existing progress of over 155,000 ethnic minority people helped into work through the New Deal, Employment Zones and Action Teams, as well as targeted interventions introduced by the Department for Work and Pensions.
Welcoming the report on behalf of the government, the chancellor of the exchequer, Gordon Brown said: “The employment gap between ethnic minorities and the overall population is beginning to narrow but we must do more to address this important challenge.
“The NEP’s report and its recommendations will help to increase ethnic minority employment, ensuring that valuable talent is not wasted and that all communities benefit from our economic progress.”
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