The recession has left almost one in two young black people without a job, appearing to contradict claims by the government that it would shield the most vulnerable from the effects of the downturn.

The left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research said 48% of black people aged 16 to 24 reported that they were out of work, compared with 20% of white people of the same age.

Not only had the absolute level of unemployment risen for young black people, but as a group they suffered the sharpest leap in joblessness: black unemployment has jumped 13% since March 2008, compared with 8% among white people and 6% among Asians.

The thinktank looked at data from the Labour Force Survey, a quarterly sample of about 60,000 households. Within that, the institute said it looked at the responses of 16- to 24-year-olds, a total of 7,200 ­people, in November 2009.

The figures appear to fly in the face of assurances by ministers that class rather than race is a greater factor in holding people back and come at a time when there are concerns about rising poverty levels in a time of penury. However in an number of interviews with young black unemployed people many refused to accept that race discrimination was solely behind the joblessness – saying instead simply that "society was unfair".

Godfrey Kingsley, a 17-year-old who has been unemployed since September, and is now on a programme run by Tomorrow's People, a charity helping the unemployed back into work, said: "I am not saying there is no racism but you cannot hold a grudge against the system. How many black people are selling cars in Jaguar showrooms or clothes in D&G? Not that many.

"But the point is that you need to be the best and that means not accepting that mindset of 'it's because I am black'. My problem was that my college was closed down by Ofsted and the teachers were sacked. That left a hole in my cv. No fault of my own."

The government defended measures it had taken to protect the most vulnerable of the population during the recession. Jim Knight, the employment minister, said the problem was partly that there were more young people in the ethnic minority population and the recession had "hit young people harder than most".

Academics said the reasons for the rise in youth unemployment among black youths were manifold: underachievement in the classroom, a disadvantage when it came to friends and family connections helping them find jobs, and the disappearance of the traditional blue-collar jobs.

"One in two young black people being unemployed is quite a shocking figure," said Steve Strand, associate professor at Warwick University's institute of education.

"If you think that education is a gatekeeper to a future there are gaps between black and white performance. But that is not big enough to account for the differences in employment."

Others point out that even in good times a third of young black people are out of a job, a "scarring effect" that meant there was a persistent loss of skills, and a longer and harder road back into the workforce.

"What's of concern is that you have especially young Afro Caribbean people who are out of work for long periods of time," said Prof Richard Berthoud, of Essex University.

"That means you have a group who are not so embedded in the workforce. So when the economy recovers and they try and find a job they continually have to answer employers who say 'what's wrong with you?'"

The possibility that the recession could permanently damage prospects for young black people echoes the experience of African-Americans in the US, who have fared much worse than those in the white population during the recession. Data last month showed that among young black American men without a high-school diploma, nearly half did not have a job.

Feature films such as Precious, which is released later this month in Britain and explores the grim but ultimately ­triumphant life in inner city New York of a young Afro American woman, have been criticised by some for sending out a negative message.

However, Femi Oyeniran, the 23-year-old actor who made his name in the 2006 film Kidulthood and in its 2008 sequel, Adulthood, said that his movies had been criticised at the time for "casting black people in a negative light". He said: "But it was fiction not reality. The recession means that we have to look at a lot of ­factors and some of them are down to black people themselves."



