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, white people made 82% of all employment tribunal claims, while accounting for 90% of the working population. 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. 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
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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
2. Things you need to know
What the data measures
The data shows the percentage of people from each ethnic group who made claims through an employment tribunal in 2007 and 2012, the most recent data available.
Reasons for making a claim include discrimination, unfair dismissal, and unfair changes to working conditions.
Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number.
Not included in the data
Percentages lower than 2% are not shown as they may be unreliable.
The ethnic groups used in the data
Data is shown for 5 aggregated ethnic groups:
- Asian
- Black
- Mixed
- White
- Other
This means estimates are shown for these groups as a whole. This is because the number of people surveyed was too small to make any reliable conclusions about any of the 18 ethnic groups.
Methodology
Read the detailed methodology document (PDF opens in a new window or tab) for the data on this page.
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 only includes claims by an individual. For this reason, data for 2007 and 2012 is not comparable.
3. 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 ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV)
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