New research by CSI and colleagues at the GEMM project has revealed shocking levels of discrimination against job applicants from ethnic minority backgrounds. We made fictitious applications to nearly 3,200 real jobs, randomly varying applicants’ minority background, but holding their skills, qualifications and work experience constant. On average, nearly one in four applicants from the majority group (24%) received a callback from employers. The job search effort was less successful for ethnic minorities who, despite having identical CVs and cover letters, needed to send 60% more applications in order to receive as many callbacks as the majority group.
