Bezos, Dimon Other CEOs Pledge To Hire 100,000 Minority Workers In New York

A group of 27 chief executive officers, including Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Jeff Bezos of Amazon (AMZN), Satya Nadella of Microsoft (MSFT) and Arvind Krishna of IBM (IBM) have promised to hire 100,000 “traditionally underserved” minority New Yorkers over the next decade.

The pledge is part of new program called the New York Jobs CEO Council, which will “collaborate with educational institutions, community organizations and nonprofits to hire skilled workers, meet employer needs and connect New Yorkers – with a focus on low-income and Black, Latinx and Asian communities – with the skills that they need for today's and tomorrow's workplace.”

The Council will also sponsor apprenticeships for 25,000 students at City University of New York, or CUNY.

"Access to quality education and training for in-demand jobs is key to creating economic opportunity for youth and workers in New York," said Council leader Gail Mellow, a former president of LaGuardia Community College. "Our mission is to ensure people in New York's most vulnerable communities can access the skills that they need to pursue promising career pathways and benefit from the city's economic recovery."

New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo said: "The COVID crisis highlighted a sad societal truth: underserved communities too often pay the highest price, and as we work to build back better from this virus, New York is confronting this injustice head on. The new initiative will play an important role [in] connecting underserved communities with career resources and access to New York's world-class educational institutions, helping ensure economic prosperity is a dream anyone can realize, no matter their zip code."

Bloomberg reported that lower income New Yorkers – particularly Blacks and Hispanics – have been more heavily exposed to the pandemic as they tend to work in service jobs requiring close contact with others.

Dimon said of the initiative: "Many New Yorkers are stuck in low-paying jobs that could be lost in the future or are struggling to navigate the labor market as the COVID-19 crisis has further exacerbated the economic inequities in the city. As companies with a long-standing commitment to the New York area and its residents, we are using our collective power to prepare the city's workforce with the skills of the future.”

Krishna said the Council will create “much-needed economic opportunities for New Yorkers in diverse and underserved communities.”

According to the New York State Labor Department, as of June 2020, the statewide unemployment rate was 15.7% and New York City’s jobless rate was 20.4%.