Execs Vow To Hire 100K Low-Income Minorities By 2030

The top executives of more than two dozen high profile companies have pledged to hire 100,000 people from New York’s minority communities by 2030.

CNBC reported leaders from many of New York’s dominant sectors have formed the New York Jobs CEO Council. Its mission is to up the recruitment from low-income Black, Latinx and Asian communities.

Among the members of the advocacy group include CEOs Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Sundar Pichai of Google, David Solomon of Goldman Sachs and Jamie Dimon of J.P. Morgan Chase.

“Many New Yorkers are stuck in low-paying jobs that could be lost in the future or are struggling to navigate the labor market during the pandemic,” Dimon said in a statement. “We are using our collective power to prepare the city’s workforce with the skills of the future and helping New Yorkers who have been left behind get a foot in the door.”

The panel said the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequality in the nation’s big cities, resulting in more job losses in low-income neighborhoods.

Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported while the unemployment rates for whites was 9.2 percent, the rate for Blacks was nearly 15 percent, 13 percent for Hispanics and 12 percent for Asians.

Last August, after the nation’s economic expansion became the longest on record, Black unemployment fell to 5.4 percent, or 2 percentage points above the rate for white workers, the narrowest gap since data began in 1972, according to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).

The black unemployment rate, which was at 5.8 percent in February, tripled to nearly 17 percent in May, according to DOL.

In May, the Federal Reserve Board reported 39 percent of people with a household income below $40,000 have lost work since the onset of the pandemic.

The group will be chaired by Gail Mellow, former LaGuardia Community College president, who has vowed to assist firms in hiring workers for entry-level jobs that put them on a career path. Among the 100,000 figure includes 25,000 jobs and apprenticeships for City University of New York students, the network reported.

“The new initiative will play an important role connecting underserved communities with career resources and access to New York’s world-class educational institutions,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement.