by Ian Woods
10th March, 2012
There are fears young black men are becoming increasingly marginalised from society after statistics revealed that more than half of them are now unemployed.
In total, the number of unemployed young black men and women has almost doubled from 28% in 2008 to 47.4% since the recession began in 2008,
The number of unemployed young white people has risen at a far slower rate, from just 15% in 2008 to 20.8% in 2011.
The figures, which do not include students, are for the working population of Britain aged 16-24.
They suggest that both black men and black women are being hit disproportionately hard by the recession, with latest jobless figures for young black women showing the rate now at 39.1%.
Robert Rose, 19, from Deptford, told Sky News that he applies for jobs every day online but that the only offers he receives are for unpaid work experience.
His last position was in a cafe where he was asked to mop the floor and wash dishes but he left because he did not earn any money and did not feel he was learning useful skills.
Mr Rose does not believe he is being discriminated against because of his colour but thinks potential employers do not like how he looks and dresses.
"I am doing everything I can to the best of my ability," he said, although he admits he could try even harder.
"There is more I can do. I go on the internet for jobs and hand out CVs but there are other ways you apply for jobs.
"You can look in newspapers. You can ask people word to mouth. I am trying but I'm not going the full length to look for jobs."
His mother Lauren added: "Some young people are genuinely looking for jobs. Some of them, you can see they're frustrated. But some of them, I don't think they are pushing hard enough."
Mr Rose's brother-in-law Nathan John, who runs a mentoring company called Youth Enlightenment, does not believe racial discrimination operates in the jobs market but says young black people have more hurdles to overcome.
"Some of them lack the skills and confidence and belief in themselves to get a job which is going to pay well and there's a stigma to being a young black man that society places on you," he said.
"If you saw someone walking towards you who is young and black, you're not going to think 'there's a future PM, future doctor or future lawyer'. You're thinking 'here's a future gangster. Is he going to stick me up?' That's an issue."
Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones grew up in a poor Jamaican family in Birmingham, but founded the Black Farmer food business, and unsucessfully stood as a Conservative candidate in the last election.
He told Sky News "The consequences of having a group of people who fell marginalised, who don't feel they have any stake in society, is the consequences that we could have the riots that we had last summer. It's something that I'd be pretty concerned about, and our politicians should be worried about."
The ONS calculates unemployment as a percentage of the economically-active population.
The Department for Work and Pensions says that when the figure is changed to include students and those unavailable for work, the proportion of young black unemployed falls to 22%.
"We have introduced a number of measures designed to give all young people the right skills and experience to match them to vacancies," a spokesman said.
"This includes the Work Programme, which assesses people as individuals to discover what barriers are preventing them from getting a job and will then work with them overcome these problems.
"We are also spending £1bn over the next three years to help young jobseekers by creating around half a million opportunities through work experience and apprenticeships."
