55% v 20% Why?

[d9f1c7]

http://news.sky.com/h...news/article/16185997
I expect to be labelled as racist for pointing out this inconvenient statistic but I think it is an important social question. 55% of young black men are unemployed as opposed to 20% of white men, why such a disparity?

[rov1100]

You have to be careful withstatistics especially percentages. The black population in Britain has risen almost exponentially over the past 2 decades. If instead you take the number of blacks in jobs these will have increased by a large factor.

[sp1814]

Thank you sea dragon.

d9f1c7 - hope that goes some way to answering your question. Bazwillrun, seeing as the difference now looks to be neglible, are you still convinced by the 'chip on their shoulder' argument?

[bazwillrun]

They have an attitude problem and a chip on their shoulder.
Oh did I forget to mention they think the world and his dog owes them.

Travel to SE London, I see it manifested every day
HTH

[emmie]

baz there is a degree of that, but i would say that many of the youngsters are unemployable, endless testimonies from business leaders seem to bear this out. If you have poor communication skills, problems with numeracy and writing skills how are you going to get a job in today's very competitive markets. The answer is you can't, and as to black youngsters being discriminated against, maybe so, but i reckon it's more across the board.

[bazwillrun]

"many of the youngsters are unemployable,"

Because of the reasons I gave for the most part

[youngmafbog]

What needs to happen is that a no holds barred investigation needs to understand why.

However such an investigation would be hampered by being afraid of being labelled as Racist. But if you dont do it, and understand and accept the real findingings (such as a chip on the shoulder, which will be there in many cases although not all) then you will never solve the problem.

So i see the real cause as the right-on lefties who have had there warped ideas backfire

[d9f1c7]

Well SP my theory is that there is a general belief that getting on in the system is "uncool" and that view is much more prevalent among black youth.

[sp1814]

D9f1s7

Then why are the unemployment rates between blacks and whites the same???

[d9f1c7]

They are not the same are they? 55% v 20% according to the article.

[sp1814]

d9f1c7

See Seadragon'd response from 20:31 last night.

[rov1100]

Maybe it can be explained by the Bell curve.

http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/bellcurve.shtml

[sp1814]

rov1100

Similar levels of unemployment amongst whites and bla...

Hang on - I've just remembered something. The ONS study which showed that immigrants of all races claim less in social security than born and bred Brits.

I assume this includes unemployment benefit.

All very confusing, isn't it?

[sp1814]

rov1100

But back to what we were saying - black unemployment = 22%, and white = 20%. Therefore, where does the bell curve fit?

[anotheoldgit]

Perhaps one of the reasons could be, that once employed they are much harder to sack, due to the fear of a potential employer, that later they may take up the race card, which in turn could cost many thousands of pounds in a law suite.

This is just common sense on the part of an employer, just as some tend to shy away from employing females of childbearing age, due to all the legislation that has recently been brought out for their protection.

I am not saying these numerous protection clauses should not be in force, but it may have something to do why certain factions are more likely than others to be unemployed.

[d9f1c7]

So what happens when the criteria in seadragon's post are applied to whites what does that fall to?
"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%. "

[sp1814]

D9f1c7

Exactly!

Why were the figures presented in such a way in the first place.mmakes the whole story a little - dodgy. Like-for-like figures would've been so much easier to debate.

AOG may have a point - some employers will not take on black workers or women of child bearing age because they fear the consequences of sacking them.

However, any employer worth his/her salt would have put stringent HR policies in place which would show due diligence in respect of staff appraisals and disciplinary processes.

Also, you have to remember, thousands of women, Asians and black workers are made redundant or sacked every year without complaint. The problem is - newspapers will never print stories about black workers who leave a company quietly - they need drama to sell papers...so all employers will ever read are the minuscule number of cases that go to tribunal, leaving them with the ridiculous impression that all black people are litigious.

And that can unfortunately translate into racial prejudice, as the BBC report proves.

[d9f1c7]

yes but what happens to the headline figure of 20% for whites when seadragon's criteria are applied?

[Paul_M]

The BBC are sh!t stirring lefties, and you SP1814 are a racist.

[sp1814]

Paul_M

Thanks for your input. I suppose all points of view are of value, whether or not they are easily supportable.

Getting back to d9f1c7's very pertinent question...who knows? Unfortunately, we haven't been presented with the full facts.

We're trying to describe a jigsaw puzzle picture, but we've not got all the pieces.

[Zeuhl]

<<we've not got all the pieces>>

based on the evidence so far, paul m appears to have lost some of his