Ethnic enterprise and the difficulties facing minority enterprise.
Ethnic enterprise
Around one in ten small businesses in Britain are owned by members of minority ethnic communities, but many are in low cost, low profit, highly competitive sectors with below average opportunities for growth, according to a study published in August by the small business research centre at Kingston University. The research was sponsored by the Midland Bank and revealed wide variations in the success of different ethnic communities.
The study Ethnic Enterprise and the High Street Bank covered employment generation, growth prospects, sources of finance and advice and marketing and among the detailed findings were:
over a third of the businesses surveyed are dependant on their own communities for more than 50% of their sales;
sources of external finance are complex, with high street banks being the main provider; dissatisfaction with the banks is highest among Afro-Caribbeans;
accountants are the main source of advice, used more than by white-owned businesses, but trade associations and chambers of commerce are less popular, probably because their are dominated by white business people;
owners are generally better qualified than white small business owners, and more receptive to business training.
The report concludes that ethnic businesses will have a tough job to grow in the 1990s, facing worse difficulties than other small businesses. The most successful will be those that adapt to market needs beyond their own communities. In the study, 76 small businesses from three communities, Bangladeshi, Afro-Caribbean and Greek-Cyriot in London, Sheffield and Leeds, were examined in detail. Contact James Curran or Robert Blackburn, Kingston University, on 081 547 2000
Another study, published at the end of September, found around one in 17 people from the Afro-Caribbean community in Britain running their own businesses, compared to one in eight white people and one in five Asian people. According to a report by the Bristol-based independent consultancy, MBS Associates, they often trade at the margins of the economy, do not have access to family capital and suffer discrimination from banks. Understanding Black Enterprise says that with unemployment running at twice the rate in the black community as the white, many black people come to self-employment having not been able to get a job and so have little experience. The report also criticises lack of support from government for new black businesses during the 1980s. Contact Leslie McDonald on 0272 411727
An analysis of 1991 census data published by the GMB union on September 6 shows that more Black and Asian people have higher qualifications than white people but suffer greater levels of unemployment. Across the UK as a whole, 13.4% of people between 18 and pension age have degrees or diplomas above A level standard; for non-white groups including Black and Asian, the figure is 15.4%. Looking at the same qualified group, the unemployment rate for whites is 3.2% compared to 6.9% for non-white, twice as bad. In some towns, particularly in Yorkshire, the gap is more than three times. Contact Matilda Quiney, GMB, on 081 947 3131
Comment
It is surely a perturbing paradox – despite better qualifications, fewer black and Asian people have jobs or run their own businesses than their white counterparts. The fundamental reasons are disadvantage and discrimintion, but what can be done? The difficulties faced by minority ethnic communities are legion, the solutions are equally complex. A host of issues interact, including school education, training, inner city deprivation, housing, cultural and sometimes language differences, to name just a few.
Self-employment and small business creation are inevitably only part of the solution – just as the nation’s economic problems have not been solved by small companies alone, whatever the hopes of the enterprising 1980s. And whatever the successes of that decade, which were real in terms of enterprise advice and support networks, minority ethnic businesses failed to benefit.
But what of discrimination? Pious anti-racist statements ring hollow when no monitoring systems exist. So a start, at least, would be for every community affairs manager, every company, every enterprise agency, every TEC, to ask itself “are we systematically checking whether we treat minority communities fairly and equally?” – because without the facts, the problem areas cannot be identified and corrective action taken.
COMMENTS