Rome wasn't built in a day, and changing the racial make-up of Bermuda's workforce won't change that fast either.

Those are the cold hard facts that Community Affairs Minister Randy Horton acknowledged on Friday when he released the latest CURE workforce survey.

Decades of racial discrimination, both formal and informal, will not be reversed in a year or two; the key is to ensure that progress is being made.

The Commission for Unity and Racial Equality's latest report suggests that this is the case.

It is inarguable that Bermuda's workplace should reflect the Island's diverse racial make-up.

CURE's mission is to bring about racial equality in society, and to that end, it only examines race in its workforce survey.

But it is a shame that the Government does not pursue the same kind of survey for gender and for Bermudians and non-Bermudians.

If Government was serious about bringing about equality throughout the workplace, it would give similar weight to the progress women and Bermudians are making.

Still, the CURE survey is a valuable tool for tracking progress in race relations.

It is right that most attention will be given to people in the most senior positions, and here there is still clearly a long way to go.

Seven in ten executive and senior management jobs are held by whites, who make up 31 percent of the whole workforce. Blacks make up 21 percent of executive management jobs and 29 percent of senior management jobs, but make up 55 percent of the overall workforce. That's the bad news.

The good news is that blacks' share of these jobs increased by one percent and two percent between 2000 and 2001.

That's slow progress to be sure, and if it was extrapolated until the number of blacks in top jobs reflected the overall workforce, it would take more than a decade to change.

But the fact is that progress is being made, and bearing in mind the peculiarities of the Bermuda economy, that should be welcomed.

Indeed, it may well be that the figures are better than the survey indicates because the CURE survey does not distinguish between Bermudians and non-Bermudians and does not fully differentiate between local and international companies.

Given that much of the senior management of international companies is non-Bermudian and likely to remain so, CURE may never achieve its overall goal.

That's because international insurers in particular must recruit from the best in the world in order to compete with insurers from all over the world. That does not mean that there are not Bermudians, white and black, at the top levels of Bermuda's insurance companies. But an island of 60,000 people cannot provide sufficient expertise to staff the executive offices of every insurance company in Bermuda.

One need only look at the recent influx of insurance companies, and the fact that they are headed by some of the most respected names in British and American insurance to see that.

What is more disturbing is the fact that employment practices within businesses seem to discriminate against blacks. According to the survey, blacks are less likely to get hired than whites and more likely to be fired.

If it is assumed — as it should be — that blacks and whites are equally likely to be good employees, then that means that institutional racism is being practised within firms and more chances to succeed (and to fail) are being given to whites. CURE has rightly identified this as a problem and this is where its focus should be.