Black pupils face A-level wages gap
Shameful lack of black officers in armed forces’ highest ranks
BLACK workers with Alevels earn £1.20 an hour less than white colleagues, a study has shown.
The TUC findings come in advance of Thursday’s A-level results and show the “black pay gap” can widen with qualifications.
Black employees with degrees face a 14% pay gap (£2.63 an hour), those with GCSEs get 12% less (£1.30 an hour) and those with no exams 5% (45p per hour).
TUC head Frances O’Grady said: “For those getting A-levels, the reality is race still plays a big role in how much they earn.”
MILITARY top brass in the most senior ranks of the RAF, Army and Navy are all white.
The MoD’s own figures show none of the 431 officers in the forces’ upper echelons are black.
Black and ethnic minority personnel make up 7.2% of the armed forces but only 2.4% of Just one in 16 is an officer compared with almost one in four for whites.
Ratios have hardly changed in the past five years.
The figures are a blow to the MoD which has tried to rid the forces of the image it may be institutionally racist.
Ben Wilson, of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, called the figures “very disapofficers. pointing”. In July the Queen chose Ghanaian-born Major Nana Kofi Twumasi-Ankrah from the Household Cavalry as her aide, the royal household’s first black equerry.
An MOD spokesman said: “The Defence Secretary has made it clear we need to do better when it comes to ethnic minorities in our armed forces.”