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Unemployment by ethnic background

1.74 million people aged 16+ were unemployed in April to June 2026. Of these, 1.15 million were from a White ethnic background and 590,000 were from minority ethnic backgrounds.

The UK unemployment rate was 4.8% in April to June 2026. The rate was 3.9% for people from a White ethnic background and 8.3% for people from minority ethnic backgrounds, although there was substantial variation between different ethnic minority groups.

The gap between the unemployment rate for people from a White ethnic group and people from all other ethnic group was 4.4 percentage points in April to June 2026.

Trends in unemployment

Before the covid-19 pandemic, unemployment was at historically low levels for people from both White and minority ethnic backgrounds.

There was an increase in unemployment for all people following the start of the pandemic, although the impact was greater on people from minority ethnic backgrounds.

• Unemployment levels rose to a high of 424,000 in October to December 2020 for people from a minority ethnic background. This was an increase of 177,000, or 72%, from the same period in 2019. During this period the unemployment rate rose from 5.8% to 10.1%.
• They rose to a high of 1.36 million in July to September 2020 for people from a White ethnic background. This was an increase of 289,000, or 27%, from a year before. The unemployment rate rose from 4.0% to 5.1%.

While the rates for people from both White and minority ethnic backgrounds fell after the pandemic, they have been rising since around 2024 and the rates in April to June 2026 were higher than the rates during the pandemic.

Unemployment during the pandemic was considerably lower than following the 2008 downturn. The unemployment rate for people from a White ethnic background reached a peak of 7.8% in 2011, while the rate for people from ethnic minority backgrounds increased to a peak of 14.7% in 2009.