Black workers still not reaching the top

Ethnic minorities are still seriously underrepresented at management level in UK companies and the position has worsened in the last decade. These are the findings of a recent report by the TUC, Qualifying for racism, which shows that at the start of the decade 30% of white employees were managers or supervisors, compared to 25.4% of black employees. But by 1999 this had fallen to 24.7% of black employees, but had risen to 30.4% for white employees.

The TUC report calls for ethnic monitoring to be made mandatory for employers to end the discrimination faced by highly qualified ethnic minority workers. It highlights the fact that 21% of black and Asian employees are educated to degree level, compared to 16% of their white counterparts.

Black and Asian workers are also more likely than whites to be stuck in part-time jobs because they cannot get full-time work. In 1999 a fifth of black part timers were "involuntary" compared to only a tenth of white part timers.

The TUC report was published to coincide with the launch of its Stephen Lawrence Task Group, set up last month to tackle institutionalised racism in the workplace. TUC general secretary, John Monks, said "Racism is blighting the working lives of thousands of well qualified young black and Asian people. The TUC wants to work in partnership with employers and the government to curb racist attitudes in the workplace".