(Reuters) - A divided U.S. appeals court panel on Monday said national statistics showing that Black people are incarcerated at disproportionate rates do not support claims that a tech company engaged in racial discrimination by refusing to hire convicted felons.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, said the national figures were not representative of the pool of qualified applicants for jobs at NTT Data Inc, since the company sought workers with significant educational and technical credentials.

Circuit Judge Richard Sullivan wrote that comparing NTT job applicants to the general population was akin to applying "national height averages to certain subgroups of the population, say NBA players or horse-racing jockeys."

The court affirmed a federal judge's ruling that dismissed a proposed class action by two Black men whose job offers from NTT were revoked when the company discovered that they had prior felony convictions. They said the company's policy of not hiring convicted felons had a disparate impact on Black job applicants, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Ossai Miazad of Outten & Golden, who represents the plaintiffs, said in an email that he was considering his options.

"It is not plausible that the racial disparities in arrest and incarceration rates that exist nationally and in every state somehow disappear at NTT," Miazad said, echoing a dissent by Circuit Judge Denny Chin.

NTT, a Japanese company with U.S. headquarters in Texas, and its lead lawyer, Jessica Pizzutelli of Littler Mendelson, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The named plaintiffs in their 2017 lawsuit in Rochester, New York federal court said their job offers were revoked pursuant to NTT's nationwide policy without regard to the nature of their offenses, how long ago they occurred, and whether their convictions had any bearing on their ability to perform the jobs they sought.

The plaintiffs backed up their disparate-impact claims with various statistics, including that as of 2010, 40% of prisoners in the U.S. were Black even though Black people represented only 13% of the population.

U.S. District Judge Charles Siragusa dismissed the case last year, saying the national statistics were inadequate to show that a disparity in imprisonment rates existed between white and Black applicants for jobs with NTT.

The plaintiffs appealed, and the 2nd Circuit on Monday affirmed. The fact that a race-based gap in incarceration rates exists among the general population does not mean that is true for the pool of applicants qualified for technical jobs with NTT, Sullivan wrote.

Sullivan was joined by Circuit Judge William Nardini. Both judges are appointees of President Donald Trump.

Chin, in his dissent, said his colleagues had held the plaintiffs to too high of a bar by saying that the statistics they relied on had to effectively prove their claims in order to defeat a motion to dismiss.

And because the named plaintiffs were located in different parts of the country and had applied for various jobs with NTT, Chin said, the statistics were relevant.

"National statistics ... are a logical starting point for a disparate impact analysis, as plaintiffs are alleging a national impact," wrote Chin, an appointee of former President Barack Obama.

The case is Mandala v. NTT Data Inc, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 19-2308.

For the plaintiffs: Rachel Bien and Ossai Miazad of Outten & Golden

For NTT: Jessica Pizzutelli of Littler Mendelson