Nearly Half of Young Black Workers Face Job Discrimination

Some might like to think that our culture is progressing and that job discrimination is becoming a dwindling problem, but the truth is that racial discrimination is still extremely common in the American workforce. We already did a blog about how the wage gap between employees of different races has been growing rather than shrinking in the past decade. Unfortunately, the numbers also continue to demonstrate that young people of color have a much harder time finding work than their equally skilled Caucasian peers.

A recent survey of young black professionals shows that nearly half of all black Americans between 18 and 35 have faced job discrimination at some point in their careers. That is compared to the ten percent of Caucasian workers who make similar claims. The number is just over thirty percent for Latinos and Asian Americans.

As with the pay gap, this problem only gets worse for women. One third of women of all races report facing gender discrimination while looking for a job. This makes the job search especially unfair towards women of color, who have multiple biases working against them.

The Law Can Help Protect Against Job Discrimination

There is a long road ahead before we achieve an equal workforce. In the meantime, there are laws in place that may be able to help victims of racial, gender or age discrimination. If you were the victim of employment discrimination, an experienced employment lawyer may be able to help you seek justice.

Everyone deserves the right to pursue their career dreams. We all need to work together to pressure employers to judge workers based on their performance and skills, rather than their race, gender, age or sexual orientation.

Dan A. Atkerson is a Dallas employment attorney who fights to empower victims of discrimination, sexual harassment and other forms of workplace injustice.