Black & Brown Millennials and Gen Zs: The Forgotten Sub-population in this Covid-19 Job Market
Millennials are now the biggest population in the workplace. With that information, I am curious to how many of the reported 38.6 million people who are recently unemployed are millennials (Fortune 2020)? What do these unemployment numbers and hiring freezes mean for Gen-Zs who are recent grads? The question that resonates most with me is how this job market will impact Black & Brown Millennials and Gen-Zs?
Gen-Zs, often called Post-Millennials, are more ethnically diverse than prior generations, with 48% subscribing to an ethnic minority group. 39% of Millennials subscribe to an ethnic minority group (Pew Research Center, 2018).
Why is this thought important? Black and Brown millennials MAY be at a disadvantage in this economy:
- Connections — Younger millennials, those who are between 25–32 let’s say, may not have as strong a professional network than those who have built multidecade professional relationships that may stretch across functions, industries, and geographies.
- Nepotism — With majority of the decision makers being white men and women, family members could be first in line for hire.
- Sexism — I fear most for women of color in this scenario. For every 100 men hired to manager, 57 Latinas and 64 Black women are hired. This specific data point directly relates to black and brown women who may be graduating graduate/professional degree programs, looking to secure managerial roles.
- Favoritism — One of the most pervasive types of favoritism is through hiring ONLY from highly ranked universities. However, black and Hispanic students are more underrepresented at the nation’s top 100 colleges and universities than they were 35 years ago (NYT, 2017).
I welcome feedback or pushback from anyone reading this. What do you all think?
