This is called the “bachelor barrier” - a condition for undergraduate studies that many African Americans and other people of color do not meet, which prevents them from being promoted or hired.
Now, there is a new initiative in the city, called OneTen, with a mission to close that gap in opportunities and create family careers for black talents from Philadelphia, especially for those without a college degree.
Instead of accrediting for a degree, OneTen hires companies to hire on the basis of skills and abilities. Former Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier heads OneTen, which he calls a “coalition of leaders” in nearly 70 companies, including IBM, JPMorganChase & Co., United Airlines, Berkshire Hathaway, GM and Airbnb, which together pledge to hire a million Black Workers. in the next 10 years. Hence the name: OneTen.
In 2021, the nonprofit helped nearly 25,000 African Americans get a job or advance in family salaries nationwide, according to a first-year progress report.
In the Philli market, Sulaiman Rahman, founder and CEO of DiverseForce, will act as the main recruiter for the initiative. He opened the P4 Hub workspace at 4537 Vaine Ave., Germantown, where the OneTen kick-off event took place last month.
The Philadelphia launch was OneTen’s first personal event, following virtual meetings at Dallas Fort Worth and Raleigh-Durham City Hall earlier this year. Atlanta will be the next city.
OneTen says the bachelor barrier needs to be removed.
University degrees are mostly a requirement for most family support jobs, and yet employment managers complain that they have trouble filling vacancies. Many jobs could be “re-approved” to eliminate the requirement for a degree, said OneTen and other advocacy groups, which would result in higher salaries that would then encourage more Americans into the middle class.
“There are many talents across this country, and the talent is evenly distributed. But there is no opportunity, “Fraser said. “What is lacking in workforce development is an ecosystem that brings together all players like OneTen,” he added. Frazier retired from Merck in 2021 after 10 years as CEO and has long been esteemed as one of the greatest corporate executives in America.
Frazier, a native of North Philadelphia, is a student at Penn State and Harvard Law School. It aims to help end inequality in America, especially in major subway regions such as Philadelphia, the country’s poorest big city. For Philadelphians aged 25 and over, 46.5% of non-Spanish whites have a degree or higher, while only 18.6% of blacks have a degree or higher. That’s according to a five-year estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 Community Survey. That’s a larger division than national data, in which 36.5% of non-Hispanic whites have a bachelor’s degree and 22.6% have blacks.
“What we want is for people to be employed in family careers, not in minimum wages,” he said. The salary to support a family is about $ 65,000 in this region, according to the MIT calculator of the living wage for a family of two adults with one child.
Current and former CEOs such as Ginny Rometti of IBM, Charles Phillips of Infora and Kevin Scherer of Amgen have been advocating for broader recruitment practices for years, he added. Rometti is the co-chair, and Phillips and Scherer are members of the OneTen board.
However, instead of an employment committee, OneTen is more of a promise to Corporate America to open its ranks.
“Many companies have worked on it. But the point is to do it on a large scale, “Fraser said. “The ten-year promise forces us to grow.”
To that end, OneTen has hired Johnson & Johnson, Comcast, FMC, Cisco, Eli Lilly and other employers and global companies in Philadelphia to take on the promise of improving employment. OneTen is also committed to employment based on alternatives such as military service, certifications, on-the-job training and community college.
Philadelphia is an ideal city for a mission, with 45% African Americans and “groups we can work with for comprehensive support, including transportation and child care,” said Maurice Jones, president and CEO of OneTen.
“It’s the perfect place to connect that ecosystem. And scale it. The property - the people - is here. “
The black community in Philadelphia also represents a microcosm of the wealth gap in America: nationally, black families own one-tenth of the assets of white families, Jones said. Meanwhile, a recent statement from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows 11.5 million unfilled jobs in the United States.
“So we need an alternative path” to hire and promote them, Jones said.
Black business leaders say the initiative is much needed.
Due to the pandemic and other pre-existing conditions, “the generation gap in wealth continues to widen between white and black American households,” said Regina Hairston, president of the African-American Chamber of Commerce PA, NJ and DE.
“We know that business ownership is one of the ways to close that gap. Another way to create wealth is a salary that supports the family. The OneTen initiative not only connects blacks without a four-year degree with a job, but seeks to create career paths. When our entire society has the opportunity to support its families and build wealth, it creates a strong economy and strong neighborhoods. The benefits of society. ”