TWO reports published by the TUC’s Stephen Lawrence Task Group in December and January reveal how institutional racism in the workplace excludes black and Asian people from job opportunities, and prevents them from gaining promotion when they do get jobs.
The report “Black and excluded” revealed that racism is rife in the jobs market and has got worse during the1990s, despite growing employment opportunities.
At 13 per cent, unemployment is two per cent higher among black and Asian workers than it was at thebeginning of the 1990s. For their white counterparts unemployment has returned to its 1990 low point of six per cent. The report also shows that three out of four unemployed black and Asian workers live in just three majorurban areas – London, the West Midlands and Greater Manchester. Apart from Outer London unemployment for Black and Asian workers in these areas is running close to 20 per cent.
In Inner London the unemployment rate dropped over the past year for white employees, while it grew for black and Asian workers despite some 75,000 new jobs being created in the capital.
Dealing with pay, the report shows that while black and Asian workers have had greater proportional increases than white workers, this is because they are largely in low paid jobs and gained exceptionally from the introduction of the national minimum wage.
In one of Britain’s notoriously low paid sectors, hotels and restaurants, there are nearly twice as many black and Asian workers as white.Ethnic monitoring should be mandatory on employers to end the discrimination against growing numbers of highly qualified black and Asian workers whose opportunitiesfor career advancement are in decline, said the Task Group report “Qualifying for racism”. The report revealed that that 21per cent of black and Asian employees are educated to degree level, compared to just 16 per cent of their white counterparts. But despite receiving higher level qualifications black and Asian employees are facing declining opportunities for career advancement. A growing “management and supervisory gap” has grown during the 1990s between black and whiteworkers.
The report, which uses data from the Government’s Labour Force Survey, also shows that proportionallytwice as many black and Asian male workers are trapped in part time jobs because they cannot get full time work than white workers – and that over half of all black males over the age of 25 in part time jobs are in this position. Being stuck in part time work further limits their chances of career advancement. Commenting on the reports John Monks, TUC General Secretary, said: “Racism is blighting the working lives of many thousands of well qualified young black and Asian people. The TUC is seeking to work in partnership with employers and the Government to curb racist attitudes in the workplace”.
TUC
