The CEOs of 27 firms among New York’s major industries—including banks, tech companies, and consulting firms—are forming a group to boost hiring from underrepresented ethnic and other minority groups in New York.

The business leadership group, the New York Jobs CEO Council, aims to hire 100,000 people from low-income Black, Latino and Asian communities by 2030, according to a release.

The executives of the new organisation represent a who’s who of the world of high finance and technology.

The co-chairs include Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase; Arvind Krishna, CEO of IBM, and Julie Sweet, CEO of Accenture. Other initial members of the CEO group include Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Satya Nadella of Microsoft; Sundar Pichai of Google and David Solomon of Goldman Sachs.

The New York Jobs CEO Council comes into being against a backdrop of growing inequality in United States, further worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Many New Yorkers are stuck in low-paying jobs that could be lost in the future or are struggling to navigate the labour market” during the pandemic, Dimon said in the release. “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.”

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Diverse minority pictures

Largely speaking, ethnic, racial and other minorities do present significant differences in their economic and employment situations. Nonetheless, each group lays claim to legitimate grievances.

12.5% of the US population is black, yet only 3.2% of senior leadership positions are held by Black people.

In fact, out of the entire Fortune 500, only 4 CEOs are black (and they’re men)—that’s a whopping .08%— and as of 2018, there have been 1,974 members of the US Senate, but only ten have been black.

Moreover, 18.3% of the US population is Hispanic, and yet only 4% of company executives are Hispanic.

Recent data from McKinsey & Company shows that women remain significantly underrepresented in the upper levels of financial-services companies.

Women and men in financial services begin their careers at parity, making up roughly equal portions of entry-level staff, but higher up the ladder, women account for only 19% of positions in the C-suite.

This is slightly lower than the 22% average for US women overall.

The forgotten minorities in the glass ceiling conversation

Another Harvard University study found that Asian Americans are the most successful US demographic — more highly educated, for example, and with higher median incomes than any other racial group. More significant, Asian Americans are 12% of the professional workforce while making up only 5.6% of the U.S. population.

However, the study also found that Asian Americans Are the least likely group in the US to be promoted to management.

“Our analysis of national EEOC [The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] workforce data found that Asian American white-collar professionals are the least likely group to be promoted from individual contributor roles into management — less likely than any other race, including blacks and Hispanics,” noted the authors to the Harvard study.

Because Asian Americans are not considered an underrepresented minority, the authors said, they are given little priority or attention in diversity programs.

Effective action hasn’t followed agreement on “the underlying premise”

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) Chairwoman, House Committee on Financial Services commented:

“Banks and other financial services firms claim to agree with the underlying premise that diverse, inclusive organisations can be more profitable and productive. But despite the known benefits, the financial services industry, including our nation’s banks, remains mostly white and male. This is not only true of banks’ workforces and executive ranks, but is also true for banks’ boards of directors, suppliers, and asset managers.”

VIDEO: Diversity & Inclusion: holding America’s large banks accountable: