People with disabilities and most ethnic minorities were less likely to be in the labour force and are more likely to be unemployed than native Irish people without disabilities, according to two new studies.
The findings are contained in reports written by researchers at the Economic and Social Research Institute and published today in collaboration with the Equality Authority.
In 2010 white people from long-standing member states of the EU and Asians were less likely to be unemployed than Irish people, the report finds. Their rates of joblessness in that year stood at 9.5 per cent and 12.3 per cent respectively. The rate for Irish people was 14.9 per cent.
All other immigrant groupings recorded higher rates of joblessness, according to the report, with 18.5 per cent of Britons unemployed, 21.5 per cent of citizens from new EU states and 36.4 per cent of black Africans.
Disability
In 2010, working-age people with a disability had a considerably higher unemployment rate – 22 per cent – compared with 16 per cent of other adults. Between 2004 and 2010 there was an increase in unemployment among people with a disability from 8 per cent to 22 per cent.
Separate figures on the incidence of discrimination reported by both minorities are also contained in the reports.
Despite the inclusion of sets of data on both employment and discrimination in the two reports, neither attempts to measure the degree to which discrimination causes minorities’ poorer labour market outcomes.
In 2010, 5.4 per cent of white Irish nationals reported having experienced discrimination while looking for work.
Less discrimination
White people from the continental countries that have been in the EU since before 2004 reported less discrimination.
Asians reported marginally more at 6.6 per cent.
Britons reported the second-highest rate of discrimination, at 8.4 per cent. Black Africans reported having experienced discrimination while seeking work far more than any other grouping at 22.1 per cent.
The study found migrants who arrived in Ireland during the recession (in or after 2008) were found to be more likely to report experiencing discrimination when looking for work than those who had arrived during the boom.
In 2010, 19 per cent of working-age people with a disability had experienced discrimination in the preceding two years compared with 26 per cent in 2004.