One in 10 civil servants for the national government has had to deal with racism at work, and a similar sized group is aware of colleagues that have been racist towards members of the public, according to a new report for the home affairs ministry.

Civil servants who were born, or whose parents were born, outside Europe were most likely to be subjected to racism, with three in 10 reporting such incidents.

People at the lower levels of the career ladder were also more likely to be affected, the survey found. Some 4,500 of the 140,000 people who work for national government took part in the research project.

In addition, 17% of the respondents said they had witnessed racist incidents involving colleagues and 1% said they had witnessed this sort of behaviour at least once a month.

Home affairs minister Alexandra van Huffelen described the results as “unacceptable” and “confronting”.

“At work it should be about what you do, not where you are from,” she said, pledging further research and action.

An earlier report at the end of 2022 showed that racism was rife at the foreign affairs ministry, a finding that led to the wider research project.