Unemployment hits BAME people harder as UK job market plummets to record low

PEOPLE from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds in Britain have been hit harder by job losses during the coronavirus crisis than the population as a whole, researchers have found.

The share of BAME people in employment fell to 67.4 per cent in April from 72.0 per cent in February, researchers from the University of Essex and other academic centres said.

That was a bigger drop than a decline to 79.4 per cent from 81.1 per cent for non-BAME people, they said, using data from the long-running Understanding Society survey led by the University of Essex.

People from ethnic minorities also face higher health risks from Covid-19, previously published research has shown. Black and Asian people in England are up to 50 per cent more likely to die after being infected, a Public Health England review said last week.

The employment report came as the global protests at the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis have put renewed focus on the wider economic inequalities facing non-white people.

The research, which was first published on June 1, showed that fewer BAME people who reported a decline in hours worked had been put on the government's coronavirus job retention scheme than non-BAME people in the same situation.

"The BAME group is very heterogeneous and many questions remain unanswered," Paul Fisher, one of the academics who worked on the report, said.

"Which communities are being hardest hit? Can the different types of jobs done by different workers explain the pattern? These are questions which urgently need answering and further research is needed."

The study showed bigger increases of BAME people who were in arrears on their bills after seeing their incomes fall, and they were also more likely to have borrowed money as a way to mitigate their earnings losses.

The research showed that people with less education also suffered a bigger fall in employment than people with more qualifications. But the difference was not as marked as between BAME and non-BAME people.

In the US, too, data published last week showed joblessness among African Americans and Asians rose even as the overall unemployment rate dropped unexpectedly in May.

Meanwhile, a survey showed on Tuesday (9) that the outlook for Britain's labour market was at its bleakest for almost 30 years despite the easing lockdown,).

Employment consultancy ManpowerGroup revealed the outcome of a survey of 1,056 UK employers, which comes as Britain continues to relax its Covid-19 lockdown.

"Hiring intentions for the third quarter of 2020 are down to minus 12 percent, with a sharp drop across all major sectors," ManpowerGroup said in a statement, noting this was the worst level since it began the survey in 1992.

The so-called net employment outlook is calculated by subtracting the number of employers who want to cut staff from those wanting to hire staff.

On a more optimistic note, ManpowerGroup added that most UK businesses expected to return to normality over the next twelve months.

"Employers remain cautiously optimistic that this will be temporary with... 57 percent of employers expecting to return to pre-Covid-19 hiring levels by this time next year."

Mark Cahill, managing director of ManpowerGroup UK, noted the data showed "unprecedented" disruption from the disease, which has killed more than 40,000 in Britain.

"While there's no getting away from the challenges that lie ahead, the data underlines the resilience of UK employers," Cahill said.

He added: "The level of disruption is unprecedented and many will be looking closely at what happens next with how Covid-19 progresses, how consumers respond and what all this means for their own operations."

Recent official UK data also painted a dire picture of the current state of the labour market.

The number of Britons claiming jobless benefit soared nearly 70 percent in April to 2.1 million.

Unemployment claims surged by a record 856,000 from March, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Britain imposed a lockdown on March 23 to halt the spread of the virus, and launched a furlough jobs retention scheme under which the state temporarily pays the bulk of wages.