Black Africans across Europe who report higher levels of discrimination in employment encounter systemic resistance in their career pursuits. In this article, discrimination in the Irish labour market is creatively challenged by centring race, and juxtaposing the experiences of migrants of Black African descent against their White counterparts based on information from 32 semi-structured interviews of first generation migrants from Nigeria, Poland, and Spain. Five characteristic experiences identified by synthesising migrants' interpretation of their journeys to paid employment are presented. The typologies in these trajectories reveal whiteness as a hidden resource that advantages Whites. It also illustrates the prevalence of an ascription of deficiency to Black workers and their credentials. These findings are presented through composite characters following critical race theory's counter-storytelling. © 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Migration Labour market inequalities discrimination Cross-cultural issues

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