Minority employment at '1980's levels'

Thursday, 17 July 2008 12:01 AM

Employment levels among ethnic minorities have shown no signs of improvement despite a flood of government spending, an influential group of MPs has found.

The gap with the national average stands at over 14 per cent, just 1.3 per cent lower than in 1987 despite £40 million of Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) funding every year.

If the current levels persist, it will take another 30 years for ethnic minorities to reach the same level as the general population.

"The large amount the DWP spends on schemes to narrow this employment gap has so far met with little success," concluded Edward Leigh, chairman of the public accounts committee which produced the report.

The committee found DWP programmes to improve the situation were haphazard and got in the way of Jobcentre Plus, whose personal advisers play a crucial role in moving minorities closer to the job market.

"The department's stop-start approach, trying one short-term project after another, has undermined Jobcentre Plus's efforts to increase ethnic minority employment," Mr Leigh said.

The committee said new projects, such as City Strategy, "lacked continuity", "Had insufficient time to be fully effective and "have mainly been discontinued".

The MPs also said Jobcentre Plus advisers are being put under so much pressure they cannot carry out their duties effectively.

"The constraints impact on their morale and effectiveness and have serious consequences for ethnic minorities, many of whom have multiple barriers to employment," the report reads.

"Whilst the department provides basic training and publishes good practice internally, this is of limited use if personal advisers do not have time to access it," it continues.

The Tories seized on the report as proof of government's failure to get minorities into work.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Chris Grayling said: "Unemployment and worklessness are particularly endemic amongst many of our ethnic minority communities and much more should have been done to tackle the problem, instead all we have seen is ministers burying their heads in the sand."

Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesperson Jenny Willott said: "Labour's welfare policies have been neglecting hard to reach groups for a decade and ethnic minorities are sadly no different. This situation is dramatically worse for ethnic minority women.

"Ministers must stop chasing headlines with badly thought out gimmicks and instead allow initiatives time to work. Otherwise we will never find a formula that really delivers for ethnic minorities."

The gap between employment levels among ethnic minorities and the general population accounts for £1.3 billion in benefits and lost tax revenue and some £7.3 billion to the UK economy in lost output.

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• economy
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• employment
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• unemployment