Welsh Journals

9. WELSH-SPEAKERS AND THE LABOUR MARKET David Blackaby and Stephen Drinhwater INTRODUCTION This paper has been written as part of an ESRC-funded project on ethnicity and the labour market. Although ethnicity is usually thought to relate to matters of race and colour, Day and Rees (1989) argue that the Welsh language is seen by many as a critical marker of ethnic identity. Given that Welsh-speakers are a minority within Wales (less than 20 per cent speak Welsh), and that research has shown that ethnic minorities in Britain face disadvantages in the labour market,2 it is of interest to determine how Welsh-speakers fare in the Welsh labour market. Recently, there has been considerable debate in Wales surrounding attempts to promote the Welsh language. Much of this has centred around the notion that Welsh-speakers are at an advantage in the Welsh jobs market solely because of their ability to speak in the mother tongue (for example, Kane's Wales, Programme 3, 'How we speak', BBC Wales, 12 November 1995). Although there is only a tiny minority of monolingual Welsh speakers (0.8 per cent of the Welsh population in 1981), the Welsh Language Board has encouraged institutions and companies to deal with individuals in their favoured language. The effect of this can be seen in the recent local government reorganization, where certain unitary authorities now require their employees, especially heads of department, to be Welsh-speakers. Williams (1985) argues that the non-Welsh-speaking majority feel neglected and think that bilingual language qualification restricts the employment opportunities for their children. Using the most recent source containing information on both the ability to speak Welsh and labour market variables, the 1991 Census of the Population, our research attempts to establish