There should be mandatory monitoring by all employers to ensure ethnic minority women workers are not unfairly treated during the redundancy process, Unite, the country’s largest union, has said.

The call was made by Unite national officer for equalities, Collette Cork-Hurst when she gave evidence to the all party parliamentary group on race and community. The group’s report on Ethnic Minority Female Unemployment published today (Friday, 7 December) was welcomed by the union.

Collette Cork-Hurst said: “Unite did make this recommendation that there should be mandatory monitoring by all employers in redundancy situations to ensure equality and fairness for ethnic minority women.

“We also raised specific concerns on the impact of the recession and public sector cuts caused by the government’s austerity programme.

“Our members are telling us that many black women are losing their jobs in the public sector, as they work on the frontline, particularly in the NHS and local government, where jobs are going first and fast.

“This cannot be allowed to continue and for the already unacceptable levels of unemployment amongst ethnic minority women to get even worse.

“Ministers must take urgent action on the recommendations of this report, particularly the monitoring of redundancies by gender and ethnicity combined, and do more to tackle the labour market barriers faced by black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi women, including racism.”