Large U.S. companies form group to encourage minority hiring in New York

(Reuters) – Leaders of major U.S. corporations, including banks and tech giants, have formed a group aimed at increasing the hiring of individuals from minority communities in New York.

The New York Jobs CEO Council, which includes executives from 27 companies among its members, aims to hire 100,000 people from low-income Black, Latino and Asian communities by 2030.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), IBM (IBM.N) CEO Arvind Krishna and Accenture (ACN.N) CEO Julie Sweet will co-chair the group.

Other companies in the group include Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), Google, Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and Goldman Sachs (GS.N), according to a press release.

U.S. companies have been under increasing pressure to do more to give minority groups access to opportunities in the wake of protests against racism, fueled by the death of a 46-year-old African-American man, George Floyd. Floyd died in May after a white police officer nodded for barely nine minutes.

The protests also came because minorities were disproportionately represented in coronavirus deaths, and lower-income communities in the United States were hit economically hard.

“Today’s economic crisis widens economic and racial disparities and exposes systemic barriers to opportunity,” Dimon said in an advisory article in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, adding that often high-achieving people in New York did not get opportunities at the top of the city employers.

“Young people in low-income and minority communities feel this failure the most. Unless we are actively working to close the gap, COVID-19 will make matters worse, ‘said the advisory panel, which was co-chaired with Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, Chancellor of New York City University.