Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) workers, disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic are now struggling to feed themselves with many relying on food banks for sustenance. Latest figures highlight that the number in the employment of the BAME community has dropped by 26 times more than the drop in white workers over the same period. According to the TUC report, the unemployment rate for BAME people has already reached 8.5%, much higher than the overall average of 4.9% and the 4.5% average for white workers. And most British Asian employees are working predominantly in the retail and hospitality industry, the industries that have suffered the worst due to repeated national lockdowns.
Cash in hand in the construction industry
Anand Seth* (name changed upon request) was a Customer Relations Officer at one of the biggest retailers in London. He was put on furlough early last October and hoping to swing back to work once the UK began its coronavirus vaccination drive. Towards the end of last year, however, he was notified that the organisation had no alternative but to make him redundant alongside dozens of his other colleagues. Being the sole breadwinner in his family, Anand, unfortunately, was pushed into the informal sector where he started taking on odd jobs in the construction industry.
Speaking about the struggles of supporting a family of four, he said, “The retail sector has all but collapsed. I had made several applications to supermarkets such as Sainsbury’s and even Ocado thinking that with a rise in digital services, I might be lucky to find something for myself. But there is only so much time that you can sit around at your house.
“I have my mortgage and bills to pay and my sons and wife to support. One cannot rely on food vouchers and benefits. They are not enough to sustain. A friend of mine took pity on me and decided to help me out by teaching me the skills of painting, welding and flooring. I have started working with construction companies and the cash-in-hand helps. I am not in the position to pay my taxes to the government even as I realise that it is now more important than ever. But I need to survive. My wife is unable to go and work owing to language barriers and with the added responsibility of home-schooling our children. So, we are just making do with whatever we can at present.”
The employment rate for people from BAME backgrounds slumped 5.3% in the year to September 2020, compared with a 0.2% decrease in the number of employed white workers. The TUC has called on the government to act quickly to protect vulnerable BAME workers, many of whom faced redundancies in the accommodation and food sectors, where about a quarter of BME workers have lost their jobs. Arcadia has been the biggest high street casualty of the pandemic, which has also triggered huge changes in shopping patterns and as the lockdowns forced high street stores to close for long periods, shoppers have resorted to increased online purchases. According to the Centre for Retail Research, the UK high street shed 177,000 jobs in 2020 and a further 200,000 are expected to be lost this year. The British Retail Consortium says that over the past two years, one in every 50 outlets has permanently closed, and that this number “will only go up”. The conditions are only worse for international students as they suffer from the double whammy of Brexit and coronavirus.
International students devastated by stringent immigration rules, coronavirus and Brexit
Jetal Zala is pursuing her Masters of Research in Business and Management from the University of Stirling. Slated to graduate in the summer of 2021, Jetal was optimistic about starting her internship in April last year with the hopes that the internship will give way to a job. But Britain went into a national lockdown around a similar time and owing to uncertainties of coronavirus, the company decided to freeze hiring until further notice.
Speaking about the hardships of finding an internship, much less a job, Jetal said, “If the stringent immigration rules were not already a challenge, coronavirus has further exacerbated conditions. Many of us have lost our part-time jobs, some are sustaining on food banks and many are struggling with mental health issues. All of this has a collective impact on our academics as well.”
Jetal came to Scotland in September 2017 and completed her MSc in Environmental Economics and Sustainable Development from the University of St. Andrews. She says, “Like other international students, I was hopeful of finding a job in the UK simply to gain work experience and further strengthen UK-India bilateral ties.
“But there are almost no campus recruitment drives and no placement offered by the university. I had already begun job hunting whilst I was studying because I was aware of the constraints that international students often face. For my dissertation, I was focussing on how the UK can help India design and implement a policy framework around recycling and water waste management. Scotland has one of the best recycling technologies and policy frameworks in the world and I was keen to transpose this in India as well. The immigration rules are also quite stringent and the process of sponsorship is quite expensive. The company sponsoring our visa should also provide proper justification to the Home Office as to why we “international students” are better suited for the job as opposed to EU or British citizens.”
The TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady, has blamed systemic racism that pushed a disproportionate number of such workers into low-income and part-time jobs. According to her BAME workers have borne the brunt of the economic impact of this pandemic. More than 800,000 workers have been made redundant during the pandemic and the unemployment rate is expected to peak at about 7.5% sometime between April and June, according to data from the Office for Budget
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