Serious racial inequality persists at top U.S. firms

At the largest and most powerful companies in the United States, only one in every 443 Black or Hispanic workers holds a top job, while one in every 97 white workers is an executive, reflecting huge inequality in this country's corporate employment sector, reported Xinhua, quoting USA Today on Wednesday.

"The data shows that more than a year after (Black man) George Floyd's murder (by a white cop in Minneapolis, Minnesota) spurred corporate pledges for change, deep racial inequalities persist at every level of these companies, creating sharply disparate outcomes for people of color, especially women of color," said the report.

Black and Hispanic workers are underrepresented in the highest-paying and most influential positions as well as in the ranks of professionals, such as lawyers and marketers, it said.

Meanwhile, "at the lower levels of organizations, they are concentrated -- and often over-represented -- in roles including administrative assistants, technicians and laborers," it added.

USA Today reported this conspicuous disparity based on previously undisclosed hiring records from dozens of firms in the Standard & Poor's 100, a group of the most highly valued companies in the stock market.