Black Thoughts
Any New ‘Study’ Of Black Workers Should Include Actual Solutions
When it comes to Black employees, we already know the challenges
A new study by Walmart finds that, unsurprisingly, it will take almost a century for Black workers to be equally represented in the private sector.
The study, also cosigned by McKinsey & Company, more specifically states that it would take 95 years for Black employees to reach “talent parity.” In plain English, this means that because Black workers account for 12% of the 125 million U.S. private-sector workers, it would take nearly 100 more years for Black people to represent 12% of those jobs at all levels — from entry-level up to the C-suite.
The report, called “Race in the Workplace: The Black Experience,” lists parity barriers such as high attrition, little opportunity to move out of entry-level roles, and a lack of trust between Black employees and their companies. And, it says that companies that seriously and openly address these barriers could lessen this time frame to 25 years. That’s still a long time.
There are no groundbreaking statistics in the report, and when discussing what the study calls “a path forward,” there are no specific takeaways, no strategic offerings, no insight on what it…
