Rescuing hospitality sector ‘crucial’ to lives of BAME workers and their families, research suggests

Much attention has been focused on the hospitality industry during the Coronavirus pandemic as one of the hardest-hit sectors by lockdown closures, but new research suggests that BAME communities will be disproportionately impacted if the sector is allowed to fail.

A new report by the Resolution Foundation found that BAME workers are disproportionately represented in the hospitality sector and that they are more likely to remain in such occupations into their middle age.

One in 12 workers from BAME backgrounds are employed in hospitality, compared with one in 20 white British workers, and the average age of a Bangladeshi hospitality worker is 42 compared with just 28 among white workers.

Hospitality is already considered a low-pay sector, but BAME workers suffer additional ‘pay penalties’, with BAME men taking home 7% less than White British men.

Nye Cominetti, Senior Economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “As workers from BAME backgrounds are disproportionately likely to work in hospitality, a significant number of workers risk moving into unemployment when the furlough scheme ends in the Spring. The government should bear that in mind for the jobs support programmes it is providing.”