Ethnic minorities absent from managements

Ethnic minorities are still seriously underrepresented at the management levels of UK companies, and the position has worsened in the last decade, according to two recent reports.

A report by the TUC entitled Qualifying for racism shows that the "management/supervisory gap" between black and white employees has widened since the start of the decade. At that time 25.4% of black employees were managers or supervisors compared to 30% of white employees. But by 1999 the figures were 24.7% of black employees and 30.4% of whites.

And a survey of FTSE 100 companies by race relations think tank the Runnymede Trust found that just 1% of senior managers come from ethnic minorities, with no black African and Caribbean executive or non-executive directors. The report says that "racial equality is not perceived as a business issue by many companies and, until it is, these organisations will keep it very firmly in that 'nice to do' category, rather than putting appropriate resources towards addressing the issue".

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. The TUC published these findings to coincide with the launch of its Stephen Lawrence Task Group, set up last month to tackle institutionalised racism in the workplace.