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1. Main facts and figures
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in 2007, 14% of employment tribunal claims were made by people from the Asian, Black, Mixed and Other ethnic groups, while employees from these groups made up 9% of the total working population
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in 2012, 18% of claims were made by people from the Asian, Black, Mixed and Other ethnic groups, while employees from these groups made up 10% of the total working population
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where the employment tribunal related to discrimination, around a quarter of claims were made by people from the Asian, Black, Mixed and Other ethnic groups in both 2007 and 2012
Things you need to know
The data is based on Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) surveys from 2007 and 2012, which is the most recent data available.
Around 2,000 claimants responded to the survey in both years.
The data for 2007 includes ‘multiple claims’ – cases where a group of people had the same grievance against an employer and the case was settled collectively. 10% of claims were multiple claims.
The data for 2012 does not include multiple claims and only measures ‘single claims’ (claims by an individual).
For that reason, data from 2007 is not comparable with data from 2012.
What the data measures
This data measures employment tribunal claims made by people who feel they have suffered a workplace grievance.
Typical reasons for an employee to make a claim are:
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gender, age or race discrimination
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unfair dismissal (when a person loses their job through unfair compulsory or voluntary redundancy practices, or through constructive dismissal, when they have been ‘forced out’ of a job)
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breach of contract (when the terms and conditions of a person’s employment have been unfairly changed, for example their working hours or entitlement to sick pay)
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unauthorised deduction of earnings (when an employee has not been paid the agreed sum of money for work done)
The ethnic categories used in this data
For this data, the number of people surveyed (the ‘sample size’) was too small to draw any firm conclusions about specific ethnic categories. Therefore, the data is broken down into the following 5 broad groups:
- Asian/Asian British
- Black/African/Caribbean/Black British
- Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups
- White
- Other ethnic group
2. Employment tribunal claims by ethnicity
| All | Unfair dismissal | Breach of contract | Wages Act | Discrimination | Other (including redundancy payments) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethnicity | All 2007 | All 2012 | Unfair dismissal 2007 | Unfair dismissal 2012 | Breach of contract 2007 | Breach of contract 2012 | Wages Act 2007 | Wages Act 2012 | Discrimination 2007 | Discrimination 2012 | Other (including redundancy payments) 2007 | Other (including redundancy payments) 2012 |
| Asian | 5 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 11 | 9 | 3 | 3 |
| Black | 5 | 7 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 12 | 3 | 4 |
| Mixed | 2 | 2 | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable |
| White | 86 | 82 | 91 | 85 | 86 | 81 | 82 | 85 | 75 | 73 | 91 | 88 |
| Other | 2 | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | 2 | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | 2 | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | 3 | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | 4 |
| Unknown | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | 2 | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable |
Download table data for ‘Employment tribunal claims by ethnicity’ (CSV) Source data for ‘Employment tribunal claims by ethnicity’ (CSV)
Summary of Employment tribunal claims Employment tribunal claims by ethnicity Summary
This data shows that:
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in 2012, White people made 82% of all employment tribunal claims, while accounting for 90% of the working population
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specifically, White people made 85% of claims for both unfair dismissal and breaches of the Wages Act, 73% of discrimination claims, and 88% of claims for other grievances
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in 2012, Black people made 7% of all employment tribunal claims, while accounting for 2% of the working population
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specifically, Black people made 7% of claims for unfair dismissal, 8% of claims for breach of contract, 6% of claims for unauthorised deduction of earnings, 12% for discrimination claims, and 4% of claims for other grievances
3. Methodology
The 2007 data was drawn from a survey using a simple random sample taken from all employment tribunal cases which had closed between January 2007 and January 2008. There were 2,020 telephone interviews with claimants, a response rate of 66%.
The 2012 data was drawn from a survey which took a random sample of all single employment tribunal claims which had closed between January 2012 and December 2012.
The sample was stratified according to:
- case outcome (successful at tribunal, unsuccessful at tribunal, Acas settled, other settled, withdrawn, dismissed)
- case track (fast, standard and open)
There were 1,988 telephone interviews with claimants, a response rate of 53%.
Suppression rules and disclosure control
Percentages lower than 2% have been suppressed as they are not large enough to be reliable.
Rounding
Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number.
Related publications
4. Data sources
Source
Survey of employment tribunal applications 2013
Type of data
Survey data
Type of statistic
Official statistics
Publisher
Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy
Publication frequency
Every 4 to 5 years
Purpose of data source
The Survey of Employment Tribunal Applications (SETA) aims to provide information on the characteristics of claimants in employment tribunals.
5. Download the data
This file contains the following: ethnicity, year, tribunal claim type, value, denominator