“If you have 13 million people out of work, and your people are suffering and suffering from small business, that’s much more important than the Wall Street changes,” Dimon told CNN’s Christine Romans. “We have to worry about that.”
Dimon said companies need to do more to help low-income Americans. Therefore, he joined a new initiative to work with educational institutions and nonprofits in the New York area to provide more job opportunities for black, Latinx, and Asian workers. He said that government alone can not solve the biggest problems of society.
“The pace is fast, the world has become more complex, and these problems of education, and jobs, infrastructure, immigration, if you fix these things, we will have a much fairer society,” Dimon Romans said.
Dimon, along with Chancellor City University of New York Félix Matos Rodriguez, spoke last week with Romans about the launch of the New York Jobs CEO Council, a coalition of 27 business leaders committed to hiring 20,000 100,000 New Yorkers and 20 years to provide students for 25,000 CUNY students.
The council’s goal is, according to Matos Rodriguez, to build new connections for the students of his school – many of whom are the first in the family to go to college.
“The idea is to build new networks,” said Matos Rodriguez. “That internship will be the beginning of that building of networks. And then everyone will see what kind of talent there is.”
LaGuardia Community College student Matthew Wilson was one of the sponsors of the job program. Wilson, who has a criminal background, earned college credit while he was in prison before being released from prison in 2016.
Wilson enrolled at LaGuardia in 2017 and was recommended for the honors society of college and honors internship programs. As a result, Wilson was selected for an internship at NBC, and worked as a production assistant for the network’s local news channel in New York.
Dimon said that for many younger people, the opportunities to work with large companies show them that “jobs create dignity, better social outcomes and that … there is always the first rank in the ladder.”
Dimon hopes the worst of pandemics is over soon
During the broad interview, Dimon also said he thought the US was “slowly getting the virus under control, and so have other countries.”
He praised leaders in Washington for encouraging efforts so far.
“The government did well,” Dimon said. “You can criticize some of these programs, but I think the administration, Secretary Mnuchin, the Democrats, the Republicans, they did it within weeks. Have you ever seen our government do something within weeks?”
But Dimon also said more government encouragement was needed, adding that there should be no sense of rumor just because the stock market has been booming in recent months back to life.
‘We’ll be fine’
Dimon did not drop his hand when asked about what could happen to the bank following the presidential and congressional elections in November.
“My job is to run JPMorgan, to serve our clients, our communities, our countries, etc., and to serve the United States of America. And that is the job and we will do it right, with a Democrat or Republican, he said.
But Dimon said he wants more civility and humanity in every political conversation – a return to people who land for partisan interests.
“What I really hope is that every president says, we need to repair infrastructure, we need to help education. We need to do these things well. And do it in a way that ensures good, healthy growth,” he said.
Still, the economy could change forever as a result of Covid-19. Dimon said continuing JPMorgan Chase will be “very flexible” about letting people work at home, noting that the bank has about 150,000 people working remotely.
“We will try to improve childcare benefits, or let people know where the childcare is,” he added.
Dimons health
“I’m almost back to normal today, I like to work, I get a lot more done here,” Dimon told Romans. The bank conducts temperature checks of employees, the offices have new air filters and workers practice social distance, he said.
Dimon, who said two years ago that he did not plan to retire until 2023, did not address the issue of succession planning – despite his health fears and the fact that figuring out who can replace Dimon is a favorite game of Wall Street analysts and investors.
“I feel great, I’m back with most of the things I did before. I think people have a purpose in life is a good thing,” he said. “I love what I do.”
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