BLACK non-Irish people are five times more likely to experience discrimination when seeking employment in Ireland compared to white Irish people, according to a new report.
It also revealed that black non-Irish people are more than two-and-a-half times more likely to experience discrimination when in employment compared to white Irish people.
“The much higher rates of labour market discrimination experienced by some ethnic groups highlights the need for employers to proactively work to ensure diversity in the workplace and to avoid incidences of discrimination in recruitment,” said Emily Logan, Chief Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC).
Managerial posts
The report used Central Statistics Office data from the past 14 years to examine the experience of immigrants and minority ethnic groups in the Irish labour market.
Published by the IHREC and the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), it also found that black non-Irish people are less than half (0.4 times) as likely to be employed than white Irish.
Both black Irish and black non-Irish people are much less likely to hold a managerial or professional job.
White EU-East nationals are much less likely to hold a managerial or professional job but show no difference in their rates of employment.
The Asian Irish group of people do not differ in terms of employment rates and are more likely to be working in professional/managerial occupations.
However people from this group are almost twice (1.9 times) as likely to experience workplace discrimination.
'Consider ethnicity'
Lead author of the report, Frances McGinnity of the ESRI, stated: “Different ethnic groups have different outcomes in the Irish labour market, even if they are Irish citizens.
“This suggests that we need to consider ethnicity more explicitly when designing policies to overcome differences in labour market outcomes across different groups.”
