Decisive action needed to tackle significant pay penalties faced by black, Asian and ethnic minority workers 12 October 2020 Commenting on new ONS data published today (Monday) highlighting pay gaps between different ethnic groups, George Bangham, Economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “While progress has been made in reducing ethnicity pay gaps for some groups, such as Indian and Bangladeshi workers, gaps have actually got larger for others, such as Black Caribbean, and White and Black African workers. As a result, millions of black, Asian and ethnic minority workers still face significant pay gaps compared to white British workers. “It cannot be right that a black African worker earns 13 per cent less per hour than a white British worker of a similar age, and in a similar job. A pay penalty that large will reflect a mixture of discrimination and wider disadvantage. Greater transparency is needed for firms to confront these pay gaps, and the Government can help this happen by extending gender pay gap auditing to include ethnicity too.”
