British-Bangladeshi jobseekers face racial discrimination

Children of Bangladeshi origin are among the British Asians who 'struggle for top jobs despite better school results', The Guardian reports.

Referring to a Social Mobility Commission study, the newspaper says the British Bangladeshis’ lower likelihood of being employed in managerial or professional jobs is down to workplace discrimination.

The Guardian, based on the study, wrote on Wednesday that children of Bangladeshi and Pakistani origin in Britain have outperformed other ethnic groups to achieve rapid improvements at every level of education, but are significantly less likely to be employed in managerial or professional jobs than their white counterparts.

The trend is being driven in part by workplace discrimination, particularly against Muslim women, said the report to be published on Wednesday by the commission.

Its chair Alan Milburn said the findings showed that Britain was a long way from offering a level playing field to non-white groups, and called for urgent action to break down barriers.

“The British social mobility promise is that hard work will be rewarded. This research suggests that promise is being broken for too many people in our society,” Milburn was quoted by The Guardian as saying.

He reportedly argued that it was striking that people who were making the greatest advances at school were still missing out in the workplace.

The report said minority ethnic pupils are outperforming white working class children in English tests throughout school, with white British teenagers coming bottom of the pile in the subject at GCSE level.

Just one in 10 of the cohort go on to university compared with three in 10 for black Caribbean, five in 10 for Bangladeshi, and nearly seven in 10 for Chinese children from similar economic backgrounds, the study reportedly found.