LOS ANGELES – Though Latinos make up a majority of Los Angeles County’s workforce, they represent a minority of senior and mid-level managers, according to statistics released Tuesday as officials called for more diversity in the top jobs.
Supervisor Hilda Solis pointed with pride to the county’s recognition by Forbes magazine as one of “America’s Best Employers,” but said more needed to be done to diversify the management ranks.
“The county needs to take a hard look at all levels of management and ensure that county executives are just as diverse as our workforce as a whole,” Solis said. “Whether it is racial diversity, ethnic diversity, disability or LGBTQ identification, we want to expand leadership development training opportunities.”
Supervisor Janice Hahn, who co-authored a motion with Solis to focus on succession planning aimed at building a multicultural group of leaders, said she was sometimes disappointed by recruiting firms’ inability to find a wide range of qualified candidates. [View the motion here.]
“I don’t buy it when I am told that we do not have qualified, diverse candidates to fill top jobs in the county,” Hahn said. “We can and should do better.”
County government is the largest employer countywide, with about 109,000 workers.
Of that number, about 38 percent are Latino, 22 percent are white, 20 percent are black and nearly 20 percent are Asian or Pacific Islanders. But almost 42 percent of all mid- and senior-level managers are white, while just 24 percent are Latino.
Blacks and Asians/Pacific Islanders are also underrepresented, making up 18 and 17 percent of management ranks, respectively.
Women also hold less than their proportionate share of high-ranking jobs. They make up nearly 60 percent of the total workforce, but just over 46 percent of management jobs, despite the fact that four of the five members of the board are women, as is the chief executive officer and lead county counsel.
The board directed staffers in every department to create mentorship programs and peer-to-peer support groups designed to elevate up-and-coming employees with diverse backgrounds. The county’s job site will also be revamped to expand outreach.
Supervisor Sheila Kuehl said it takes a personal touch.
“I want to single out my colleague, Supervisor Solis … who has been the first in virtually every board she’s ever served on, every position,” Kuehl said. “When we were in the Legislature, inevitably she would reach out to Latino and Latino younger people … simply saying you can do it, too, sharing her background, sharing her history, encouraging people, making calls. This is the way the Legislature changed its face.”
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Loam says
“I don’t buy it when I am told that we do not have qualified, diverse candidates to fill top jobs in the county,” Hahn said. “We can and should do better.”
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Why? Does she have any reason to think that there are qualified, diverse candidates? Does she have any evidence to support her position? She ignores the fact that LA County has a large number of unskilled immigrants that biases the statistics in upper-level jobs. Unskilled workers who are new to this country are NOT going to be mid- to -upper level managers. With one-out-of-every-four managers Hispanic, it’s obvious that there is no institutional racism.
20% of the county workforce is African-American, but only 18% of management is? How exact do these numbers need to be? Do we have to make number match so that these supervisors feel better? Is a change of 2% going to make things run smoother? What does matching race numbers between management and workforce do anyway?
Are these supervisors going to worry that 80% of our County Supervisors are women? How does that compare to the county workforce?
I am tired of politicians making arguments solely on political correctness.
Most Qualified says
Why don’t you just select the person most qualified?
Doesn’t matter what they look like.
Interview by phone or text.
Tim Scott says
Hiring decisions are seldom based on “most qualified” because that’s usually not obvious. Hiring decisions are made by sorting out who IS qualified from those who aren’t, and then choosing one of them. The basis of that choice is generally some sort of subjective “made a good impression,” “seems like someone we can work with,” etc. Unfortunately, unless you really focus on causing diversity those subjective factors will mostly lead to “white people choose more white people.”
Adam B says
Pretty soon California will seem like an extension of Mexico, and no one (including latinos) will want to be here. The migration out of California for non-latinos has been going on for a minute, and they don’t seem to be slowing down in immigration to Cali/creating anchor babies anytime soon. You came here for better opportunities, but don’t realize your over influx into the cities is destroying the reasons you wanted to be here. There are many other states starting to have this same issue. This is why i’m all in favor of opening the borders even more, to international foreigners, because thus far latino immigrants have had little competition since they outnumber all the other minority groups…and i guess you can’t call them a minority when they have all the numbers.
Mr fed up says
This is code for more latino managers because theres too many whites, & ignore the other races, stay classy L.A. county
Lee says
Stay classy, Mr fed up. You’ll be revered over at the Antelope Valley Voice, especially if you show them your Confederate flag in your garage.
Mr fed up says
Really confederate flag! That just shows your ignorance, if you know anything about how the county works, if theres too many white people. They use “diversity” as a tool to change the demographics in all levels of the county! Postions shouldn’t be based on race, its more education and seniority the more u move up( mic drop) so take your rebel flag and shove it