Labor & Employment Law

Study finds (well, duh) racial bias in the advertising industry

Probably no industry in the United States is free from racial bias. Yet a recent study indicates that the advertising industry really has a long way to go.

In NEW DATA EXPOSES DRAMATIC RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IN U.S. ADVERTISING INDUSTRY the NAACP summarizes the whole story. [Read the full study]

Specific findings include:

Black college graduates working in advertising earn $.80 for every dollar earned by their equally-qualified White counterparts;

Based on national demographic data, 9.6 percent of advertising managers and professionals should be African-Americans. The actual percentage in 2008 is 5.3 percent, representing a difference of 7,200 executive-level jobs;

About 16 percent of large advertising firms employ no black managers or professionals, a rate 60 percent higher than in the overall labor market;

Black managers and professionals in the industry are only one-tenth as likely as their White counterparts to earn $100,000 a year;

Blacks are only 62 percent as likely as their white counterparts to work in the powerful ?creative? and ?client contact? functions in advertising agencies;

Eliminating the industry?s current black-white employment gap would require tripling its Black managers and professionals.

Full post as published by Ross' Employment Law Blog on January 14, 2009 (boomark / email).