Group pledges 100,000 jobs for New York minorities

A coalition of more than two dozen business leaders from some of New York City's largest employers have together pledged to hire 100,000 people from minority communities over the next decade.

CEOs from 27 major businesses, including J.P. Morgan Chase and Google, announced the formation of the New York Jobs CEO Council on Tuesday to help meet that goal.

The initiative is led by Dr. Gail Mellow, and the group will work closely with the City University of New York.

"We're very excited about this – about its scale, about the new way of working together and about really thinking about New Yorkers who haven't had the opportunity to be part of these major companies," Dr. Mellow told the Associated Press on Wednesday.

The new program comes as the COVID-19 pandemic has hit communities of color especially hard and worsened income inequality in the United States.