A report has found that black non-Irish people are more likely to be discriminated against when seeking employment in Ireland than white Irish people.

The report was prepared for the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission by the Economic and Social Research Institute.

The "Ethnicity and Nationality in the Irish Labour Market" report, finds that black non-Irish people are five times more likely to experience discrimination than white Irish people when seeking employment in Ireland.

The study also found that both black non-Irish and black Irish groups were much less likely to hold a managerial or professional job.

Asian Irish groups of people do not differ in terms of employment rates and are more likely to work in top positions, but they are almost twice as likely to experience workplace discrimination as white Irish people.

The report’s lead author Frances McGinnity said: "Different ethnic groups have different outcomes in the Irish labour market, even if they are Irish citizens.

"This suggests that we need to consider ethnicity more explicitly when designing policies to overcome differences in labour market outcomes across different groups."

Chief Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Emily Logan said it was important to ensure that people in Ireland were afforded equal employment opportunities and integrated into the labour market.

She said: "With a continuously improving jobs market and increases in immigration flows to Ireland, it is important to ensure that people resident in Ireland are afforded equal employment opportunities and integrated into the labour market.

"The much higher rates of labour market discrimination experienced by some ethnic groups highlights the need for employers to proactively work to ensure diversity in the workplace and to avoid incidences of discrimination in recruitment."

Report's key findings:

  • People from the black non-Irish group are less than half (0.4 times) as likely to be employed than white Irish and five times as likely to experience discrimination when seeking work.
  • People from the black Irish group are twice as likely to experience discrimination seeking work and just under three and a half times (3.4 times) as likely to experience discrimination in the workplace as white Irish.
  • Both the black non-Irish and black Irish groups are much less likely to hold a managerial or professional job.
  • The white EU-east nationals group are much less likely to hold a managerial or professional job but show no difference in their rates of employment.
  • The Asian Irish group of people do not differ in terms of employment rates and are more likely to be working in professional/managerial occupations, but are almost twice (1.9 times) as likely to experience workplace discrimination.