A new coalition of executives representing 27 key employers is set to hire 100,000 low-income and minority workers by 2030. The effort includes JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella.
The group, called the New York Jobs CEO Council, said its goal is to recruit early-career candidates from low-income and black, Latinx and Asian communities in New York City and lock them into positions with long-term career potential. In addition, the group said it will provide employment opportunities and students for 25,000 students at City University of New York, or CUNY.
The attempt comes amid the distinct impact of the coronavirus pandemic on low-income workers and minorities, who have higher rates of redundancies than higher-income workers and white workers. At the same time, the protests of the Black Lives Matter, following the assassination of George Floyd while he is in police custody in Minneapolis, have raised their awareness of systemic racism, which creates additional barriers for minority workers.
“The COVID crisis marks a sad social truth: Underserved communities are often paying the highest price, and because we are working to better rebuild this virus, New York is facing this unjust head,” said New York Governor Andrew M Cuomo in a statement on the initiative.
The New York region has the largest gross domestic product of any metropolitan statistical area in the nation, the group said. But not everyone is enjoying the fruits of that prosperity, with unemployment 85% higher in the Bronx than in Manhattan before the pandemic, the group said.
About 6 out of 10 Hispanics and 4 out of 10 Blacks said they were single in their household was removed as their wages were reduced in April, when the pandemic effectively shook the U.S. economy, according to a Pew poll. That compares with 38% of whites who said they experienced the same impact.
Among the other business leaders joining the coalition are IBM CEO Arvind Krishna; Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock; CEO of Bank of America Brian Moynihan; Google CEO Sundar Pichai; and David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs.
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