UNEMPLOYMENT is rising twice as fast among black workers when compared with their white counterparts, a shocking TUC report said today.

Analysis of government statistics by the union body shows that joblessness among ethnic-minority workers has shot up by nearly two-thirds in the last year, from 5.8 per cent to 9.5 per cent. Among white workers, it rose by a third, to 4.5 per cent.

The Office for Budget Responsibility forecast that unemployment among all workers would peak at 7.5 per cent in the second quarter of this year.