CEOs vow to create 1M new jobs for Black Americans

A coalition of dozens of CEOs have signed on to an effort to provide at least one million new jobs for Black Americans in positions that provide competitive wages and benefits.

The effort, first reported Thursday by The Wall Street Journal, involves 37 CEOs backing a startup that is pledging to recruit Black candidates primarily without college degrees but with high school diplomas and other certifications. The startup will provide job training for positions in companies run by the supporting CEOs.

Companies supporting the startup, dubbed “OneTen,” include Merck, Nike, Bank of America, Target, Walmart, and IBM, among others.

“This is a moment in time for Americans to move past our divisions to come together and reach our full potential as a nation. Our country’s workforce of the future will be an increasingly diverse one,” Merck CEO Ken Frazier said in a statement. “Through the creation of one million jobs for Black Americans over the next 10 years, OneTen has the potential to address persistent inter-generational gaps in opportunity and wealth.”

Frazier pointed to this year’s widespread protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody as an inflection point that caused many business leaders to reexamine past initiatives meant to improve job opportunities for the Black community, which he said were found wanting.

“What brought people together is that they looked at our country and said, it’s this generation of CEOs who don’t want to pass this down to the next generation,” he told the Journal.

Frazier added that the program’s focus on people without college degrees will break down the barriers faced by those roughly 80 percent of working-age Black Americans who do not have college degrees.

“All of us would agree that what we’re doing now isn’t working to the extent that we want it to work,” he added.