Read: Black youth unemployment rate of 40% similar to time of Brixton riots, data shows

Young black workers have been hit disproportionately hard during the pandemic, according to Guardian analysis, with more than 40% unemployed – three times worse than white workers of the same age.

Forty years on from the Brixton riots, which spread across the UK during a recession in which black people lost their jobs in disproportionate numbers, experts are warning that coronavirus has exposed deep-rooted inequalities that still exist in the employment market.

The black youth unemployment rate was the same in the last quarter of 2020 as in the early 1980s, around the time the riots took place.

Between October and December 2020, 41.6% of black people aged 16-24 were unemployed – the highest rate since the last financial crisis, Guardian analysis of data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reveals. Unemployment among white workers of the same age stood at to 12.4%.

Before the pandemic, between January and March 2020, 10.6% of young white people were unemployed compared with 25.3% of young black people. Nine months later, the unemployment rate among young black people had shot up by 64.4% compared with 17% for their white counterparts, the ONS figures show.

Read the full story in The Guardian.

Achieve equality, through diversity & inclusion is one of the ‘Levelling Up Goals’ launched to set out clear objectives for the UK's Levelling Up challenge.