For Black workers, there’s progress in the workplace, but there’s still a mountain to climb | Private Equity Weekly

Looking at the employment situation for Black Americans, the picture is mixed: Much progress has been made during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, but there is still much work to be done.

In the nearly four years since the pandemic upended the U.S. economy, progress for Black people has been clear: Income surges have outpaced gains for whites and Hispanics, and the unemployment rate has dropped by more than a percentage point. Compared with where it was in January 2020, people There is widespread agreement that collective awareness about workplace inequality has increased.

However, there are still racial disparities in income. Black workers remain significantly underrepresented in some occupations, especially high-end tech, and efforts to address some of these issues have fallen out of favor amid criticism that they go too far and are ineffective.

But overall, there is optimism that real progress has been made.

“This recovery has really pushed the limits of what policymakers thought was possible for Black workers,” said Jessica Fulton, interim president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank focused on people and Community issues color. “We’re in a situation where people accept that black unemployment is always going to be high and there’s nothing they can do about it. So I think this is an opportunity to continue to push the envelope of what’s possible.”

Data-wise, the numbers are encouraging.

The black unemployment rate was 5.3% in January, up slightly from December but still close to the historic low of 4.8% set in April 2023. Black employment totaled nearly 20.9 million people that month, an increase of 6.3% from February 2020. That was a month before the pandemic hit, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

From a salary perspective, these numbers are even more encouraging. For Black workers, weekly pre-tax earnings increased by 24.8% through the end of 2023 since the first quarter of 2020. This figure is higher than the 18.1% increase for whites and the 22.6% increase for Latinos during the same period. Among the ethnic groups measured by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, only Asians saw a larger wage increase, accounting for 25.1%.

Still, white unemployment fell sharply, to 3.4% in January.

“High unemployment among black workers is a solvable problem,” Fulton said. “We need to address some challenges. We need to figure out how to address discrimination, we need to figure out how to address inequalities in access to quality workforce development. We need to figure out how to address workforce vulnerabilities.”

This situation is well documented. According to statistics, while black people make up about 12% of the U.S. workforce, they hold only 8% of all technology jobs and only 3% of executive positions McKinsey & Company Study to be released in 2023.

There are multiple groups working to address this gap, with varying degrees of success.

People involved told similar stories. Black workers are interested in technology and believe there are opportunities within it. This company doesn’t understand the real-world benefits of a diverse workplace. Opportunities are limited due to backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“Diversity is more than just a warm and fuzzy feeling. The numbers prove you can get a better return on investment,” said Autumn Cox, a software engineer at a large tech company in the Northwest. She requested anonymity because the company is a large tech company. Our company. Permission for this article has not been obtained.

Cox, who is Black and holds a prominent position in the tech sector, has worked in the tech space for more than a decade while climbing the corporate ladder and striving to help her colleagues succeed.

In addition to her job responsibilities, she is involved with several organizations in the hope of helping others achieve greatness in the technology field.they include Rewrite codea global network dedicated to women founded in 2017, and mill spouse coderan organization that provides assistance to military spouses, where Cox serves as chairman of the education committee.

Companies that build diversity in the right way thrive, she said. Products that do not suffer on a tangible level are inadequate and the database does not reflect real-world dynamics.

“A lack of diversity puts a egg on the face of very big, good tech companies because their products are immature,” Cox said. “One of the best ways to combat bias in data is diversity, and it’s Diversity in all different contexts. If you look at the boards of most large AI companies, do you see diversity there?”

In fact, racial bias is still considered a significant problem, especially in the tech sector.

About 24% of tech workers said they experienced racial discrimination at work in 2022, up from 18% the previous year. a survey Provided by Dice, the technology career marketplace. While some companies have changed their corporate culture, many others are still lagging behind.

“There are some good stories out there,” said Rewrite founder Sue Harnett. “Goldman Sachs and Bank of America do a great job of not just trying to recruit, but actually getting them on board and converting them from interns to full-time employees.”

Rewrite the Code works with employees and the company to address diversity issues. Specifically, the organization focuses on college women and follows them through the first six years or so of their career paths.

On the downside, Harnett still believes there are too many measures that are symbolic and not enough.

For example, she said, some companies focus on historically black colleges and universities, but those colleges and universities’ roles are limited to being able to find a capable and diverse workforce.

“I cringe when I talk to a company and ask them about their diversity hiring strategy, and their answer is that they work with HBCUs,” she said. “It can be part of the strategy, but it shouldn’t be the only strategy.”

Still, Harnett sympathizes with the difficulty of the job.

“You have to invest a lot of money to try to find this talent, which can be huge, but I think there are solutions, so I’m personally optimistic,” she said. “I wish we could make more progress now. But these companies will drive the process.”

From 2019 to 2022, Black-owned businesses as a share of Black households surged from 5% to 11%, the fastest pace in 30 years, According to the Small Business Administration. The surge comes as the number and amount of loans to Black-owned businesses more than doubled and the share of the SBA’s loan portfolio to minority-owned businesses jumped from 23% to 32% since 2020. % above.

However, the issue of race remains a fragile dynamic in the United States, and there is always the potential for progress to be reversed, especially given growing hostility toward DEI initiatives. Critics say the approach leads to a misallocation of resources, especially in the wake of controversy at the Ivy League.

“From 2020 to 2022, even during the pandemic, we felt we had the most potential and the most promise,” said Jamila Wright. “We received so much from corporate entities With so much funding and cooperation, attacks on DEI have impacted some businesses, including ours.”

But the controversies have mostly sparked a reexamination of how diversity is achieved rather than a push back on overall initiatives.

For example, a The Conference Board’s December Survey Found no HR leaders planning to scale back diversity efforts. Still, Jamila Wright said she’s cautious about the future.

“I think history tells us that when it comes to race in America, nothing ends quickly,” she said. “So, we’re just trying to figure out how to be smart in situations where we’re not supposed to be smart. That’s something we have to be prepared to do.”