Originally published here.

Young black Londoners are twice as likely to be unemployed as their white counterparts with more than one in three going jobless, provoking calls for the Government to “urgently address the appalling disparity,” a joint investigation by the Evening Standard and The Independent has revealed.

Figures obtained exclusively by us show that a staggering 37.4 per cent of black Londoners aged 16-24 who are economically active are unemployed, compared to 17.5 per cent of whites and 20.6 per cent of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi youths.

This is according to the Office for National Statistics who drilled down into their database to determine the ethnic breakdown of London youth unemployment at our request. It comes despite record job vacancies at the end of the third quarter of 2021, with nearly 1.2 million jobs available countrywide. A leading race equality think-tank called these statistics “appalling” and said the Government has “a duty of care” to tackle racial discrimination faced by young black applicants.

Dr Halima Begum, CEO of the Runnymede Trust, said: “These figures confirm that the pandemic continues to disproportionately impact young black and ethnic minority communities. Our young black workforce are employed in insecure jobs in the gig economy and are often the first to be let go. One in six black and Asian men are in this form of work, compared with one in 10 white workers. Government cannot abrogate its duty of care to black British families and must acknowledge employment fragility in ethnic minority communities.”

Their spokesman added: “Evidence shows discriminatory attitudes are at the heart of higher rates of unemployment. This is underscored by evidence from curriculum vitae studies which illustrate an ‘ethnic penalty’ for job applicants who have names which suggest they are not white British. As a consequence, individuals had to submit on average 80 per cent more applications to receive a positive response than a white Briton.”

Duro Oye, CEO of 2020 Change, a youth empowerment social enterprise, said: “Industries are missing out on young talent because of unconscious bias in selecting candidates but also because they struggle to make them feel comfortable in the workplace once hired. Black and Asian youths often have no social network to guide them around the nuances of corporate etiquette and the result can be they lose confidence or feel they don’t fit.”

The ‘ethnic penalty’ and questions left unanswered

When Gopal Singh applied for a job as a hotel receptionist last month, the interviewer asked him a question that put him on edge: “How do I know if I give you the job that you won’t go back to your home country within six months?”

For Gopal, who had emigrated from India to the UK as a young child, this was a case of racial discrimination. It was the 61st job he had applied for since being let go as a night porter at the start of the pandemic and it made him wonder what part racism had played in his failure to land a job.

Gopal’s story stood out because it was an example of blatant racial discrimination — usually, bias is rarely able to be identified as the reason for the failure to get hired.

Almost all the jobless black and Asian youths we spoke to as part of our joint Evening Standard and Independent investigation into unemployment could never be sure of the reason they had been unable to land a job.

A 2019 study by the Centre for Social Investigation at Oxford University’s Nuffield College revealed that ethnic minority applicants have to send 60 per cent more applications to get a positive response from employers compared to their white counterparts.

Other curriculum vitae studies have shown that the “ethnic penalty” may be even higher.

But whether the racism is overt, hidden or masquerades as unconscious bias, the fact is that over 37 per cent of economically active black Londoners aged 16-24 are jobless, compared to the average rate of 11.7 per cent of youth countrywide.

Today we speak to two young black Londoners who are part of this disturbing jobless statistic and have powerful stories to tell — yet cannot be certain what role their ethnicity has played in their failure to get hired.

You can read the complete article here.