TESTIMONY
Jeanne Victor, Executive Director of the Equal Employment Practices Commission, on Addressing Inequities and Underutilization in New York City's Workforce
1:24:20
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8 min
Victor outlines the role of the Equal Employment Practices Commission (EEPC) in auditing city entities' equal employment opportunity programs and researching the underutilization of women and people of color in the workforce.
- The EEPC's 2022 report found white workers tended to be more populous in higher-paying job titles like sanitation worker, firefighter, and police officer.
- Women and people of color were more populous in lower-paid roles like school safety agent, social worker, and caseworker, despite requiring college degrees.
- In FY21 Q4, underutilization was identified in 22 of 29 job groups, with women, Black employees, Hispanics, and Asians underrepresented in various groups.
- The report suggested occupational segregation, with white men disproportionately employed in higher-paying jobs.
- Victor recommends aggressive training for workers in lower-salary groups to qualify for higher-paying roles and create career pathways.
- She cites a McKinsey report stating generative AI could widen the racial wealth gap if Black workers are not upskilled from automation-risk jobs.
Jeanne Victor
1:24:20
So good afternoon, Chair Dela Rosa, Chair Hudson, Chair Lewis, Chair Williams, and members of the committees on civil service and labor, women and gender equity, and civil and human rights.
1:24:30
My name is Gene Victor, and I'm the executive director of the Equal Employment Practices Commission.
1:24:35
Otherwise known as the EEPC, a small independent nonmayor all oversight entity charged with auditing the EEO programs of city entities.
1:24:44
In addition, we performed research into the underutilization of women and people of color in accordance with local law 13 of 2019.
1:24:52
To my right, I'm here with our director of research, Russell Ferry.
1:24:57
In the 3 years that I've held the executive director position, I have seen a great deal of movement by city council and Decast to address inequities in the workplace.
1:25:06
Most recently, requiring accident reviews offering employee developments such as management skill training, training hiring, managers and unconscious bias, and human resources efforts to employ people with disabilities, just to name a few.
1:25:21
Yet despite all the effort, inequities, unfortunately, continue to exist.
1:25:25
I wanna start by saying that disparities between white men, women, and people with color are pervasive nationwide.
1:25:31
In February 2024, the Mackenzie Institute for Black economic mobility, published a report entitled, the State of Black Residence, the relevance of place to racial equity and outcomes.
1:25:43
And noted that there are substantial gaps between black and white residents in virtually every county in the United States.
1:25:49
In fact, their analysis determined that there is nowhere in the United States where outcomes for black residents equal those of their white neighbors.
1:25:57
And as they look across the past decade to gauge, the rate of progress.
1:26:02
They note that while multiple metrics have been improving for black residents, those gains have not closed racial gaps.
1:26:09
In any meaningful way as white outcomes improved to the same degree or even more so.
1:26:16
They concluded that at the current pace it could take more than 300 years for black residents across the nation to reach parody with their white neighbors.
1:26:26
Progress has not yielded parity.
1:26:29
In our 22 2022 report, as part of the EEPC's research activities into the underutilization of women and people of color in the city's workforce.
1:26:40
We created a chart depicting job group composition and medium salary by race, ethnicity, and gender, as well as conducted an analysis of 6 job titles in the New York City workforce, namely police officer, correction officer, school safety agent, sanitation worker, caseworker, social worker, and firefighter.
1:27:01
Here's what we found.
1:27:03
White workers tended to be more populous in titles in the higher pay job groups.
1:27:08
Such as sanitation worker, firefighter, and police officer.
1:27:12
And women and people of color tended to be more populous in titles in the lower paid job groups.
1:27:17
Such as school safety agent, social worker, caseworker.
1:27:20
Despite the requirement that social workers have a master's degree, and caseworkers have a bachelor's degree.
1:27:27
All the other titles analyzed in this report have either a 60 college credit requirement or a high school diploma requirement.
1:27:35
In the fourth quarter of FY 21, underutilization was identified in 22 of the city's 29 job groups.
1:27:43
Women were underutilized in 20 of the job groups.
1:27:46
Black employees were underutilized in 13 job groups, and Hispanics and Asians reach underutilized in 10 job groups.
1:27:53
But the overrepresentation of women and people of color in the correction officer school safety agent, social worker, caseworker titles, suggested the presence of occupational segregation, which is which is defined as the concentration of individuals from certain groups, typically racial, ethnic, and transgender groups into certain occupations and job groups.
1:28:16
Historically, this has manifested with white men disproportionately employed in higher paying jobs and women and people of color employed in lower paying jobs.
1:28:26
For this reason, we recommended at that time that the city aggressively offer training for workers in those job groups that are at the lower end of the salary scale, such as caseworker, food preparation, guards, clerical, etcetera.
1:28:41
To encourage those workers who are able and interested in gaining skills, to qualify for higher salary jobs, the opportunity to do so.
1:28:50
In this way, workers in these job groups may find opportunities for future growth, which may provide career pathways for women and black Hispanic Asian employees to advance their careers into jobs with higher wages.
1:29:03
Targeted training would also provide additional opportunities for new workers interested in starting a career with the city of New York.
1:29:11
By investing in its employees, the city can create jobs for new employees who may be at the beginning of their careers while encouraging current employees to qualify for higher paying roles within the city's workforce.
1:29:23
Since our 2022 report since then Mackenzie and Company as a management consulting firm, published an article in December 2023 on generative AI's impact on black economic mobility.
1:29:36
And at McKinsey states that new wealth created by digital and AI capabilities flows to an economy where the medium black household has only about 15% of the wealth held by the medium white house household The data are striking.
1:29:52
According to Mackenzie, the medium black family has amassed about $44,900 in wealth.
1:29:58
The median white household holds $285,000 in total assets without correct long standing patterns, generative AI has the potential to increase this racial wealth gap.
1:30:12
Black Americans capture Only about $0.38 of every dollar of new household wealth due to AI despite representing 13% of the population.
1:30:22
If this trim continues and projections of the growth of black households are accurate by 2045 racially disparate distribution of new wealth created by generative AI, could increase the wealth cap between black and white households by $43,000,000,000 annually.
1:30:41
The article states that black workers are increasingly overrepresented in 4 of the top 5 occupations at risk of automation.
1:30:51
Office support, production work, food services, and mechanical installation and repair.
1:30:58
And if rescaling efforts are not undertaken now, this trend only stands to worsen.
1:31:03
According to their analysis of the data, 24% of all black work are in occupations with greater than 75% automation potential compared with just 20% of white workers and they conclude that general AI will likely alter the professional pathways that black workers rely on to move from low wage to higher paying roles.
1:31:27
The authors go on to say, however, that leaders have an opportunity to build equity and fairness into their developing generative AI strategies and associated applications and can accelerate the closing of the racial gap by preparing workers to meet the needs of a postgen AI landscape.
1:31:47
McKinsey's recommendation is to prepare workers by training them in skills that cannot be easily to placed by technology in the near future by emphasizing foundational and nuanced skill building instead of role specific training.
1:32:03
So in conclusion, the growth of AI only adds to the urgency of addressing paid disparities in the city's workforce because if the city fails to get ahead of it, It can set back all of the gains and progress that have been achieved to date and exacerbate the existing racial gap.
1:32:19
What is required is a program of a showing equal pay for equal work, identifying and removing barriers embedded in hiring and promotional practices analyzing the civil service system to ensure hiring and promotional practices are fair and equitable.
1:32:35
Employee development and career counseling, understanding why employees choose to leave, continuously reviewing relevant employment metrics to ensure all of the city's efforts are making a difference and tweaking those efforts when necessary.
1:32:50
Thank you for inviting me and Russell to speak with you today, and we're happy to answer any questions you may have.
