EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the fifth in a series of stories about this week’s Richland County Community Equity Challenge. Today’s topic deals with employment.)
MANSFIELD — The absence of many Black residents, especially men, from the Richland County labor force is a missed opportunity for local businesses.
That’s one of the big takeaways from Day Five of the Richland County Community Equity Challenge, a week-long effort aimed at creating dedicated time and space to build more effective social justice habits, particularly those dealing with issues of race, power, privilege and leadership.
The eight-day effort, which runs through Nov. 21, allows participants to receive daily emails or text messages with links to videos, podcasts and/or reading assignments,
The focus for Day Five is on employment, a crucial issue in Richland County.
A study done by the North End Improvement Community Collaborative in 2020 found almost seven in 10 Black men in Richland County between the ages of 16 to 64 were not in the official local workforce.
The same study found one in four Black men in the same age range were unemployed.
Numbers are better for local Black women, though they also trail their White counterparts.
Crystal Davis Weese, the NECIC business development coordinator who formerly worked as the organization’s recruitment coordinator, said the issues in the local workforce go beyond employment, however.
“It takes more than a job offer, job training and workforce development programs to fix our employment and poverty issues,” Davis Weese said.
She said workers need to feel connected, living wages, “space for grace” and the need to experience a “true cultural and diverse welcoming space from the leadership on down.”
Davis Weese is a leader of the Richland County Task Force on Racism employment steering committee. The Equity Challenge is a product of the task force’s efforts.
In her task force efforts, Davis Weese said she has learned local employers need to listen more to their workers and job seekers and have plans to respond to barriers to employment faster.
“No matter how skilled a worker is, if the barriers are plentiful, they will outweigh the ability (of employees) to effectively meet job requirements,” she said.
According to organizers, Black workers still face more hurdles to get a job than their White counterparts around the country.
“They continue to face higher unemployment rates, fewer job opportunities, lower pay, poorer benefits, and greater job instability,” according to material with today’s challenge.
“These persistent differences reflect systematic barriers to quality jobs, such as outright discrimination against African American workers, as well as occupational segregation—whereby African American workers often end up in lower-paid jobs than Whites—and segmented labor markets in which Black workers are less likely than White workers to get hired into stable, well-paying jobs,” organizers said.
The challenge includes a link to a video showing “The Unequal Race for Good Jobs.”
Members of the local task force have learned many of the issues — wealth, employment, education, criminal justice, etc. — are all intertwined.
“It would be extremely difficult to fix one domain without addressing another,” organizers said.
“For example, trying to fix the employment rate without looking at educational attainment, or trying to increase home ownership rates without looking at employment opportunities, would be impossible,” they said.
For example, one in four Black men in Richland County are incarcerated, compared to one in 50 White men.
“Having a criminal record may be a barrier to gainful employment for many African American men in Richland County. Obtaining employment with a history of a conviction is challenging, and even more so with a felony conviction.
“However, having gainful full-time, stable, employment has been shown to reduce recidivism, reduces likelihood of committing crimes,” organizers said.
Davis Weese said she hopes challenge participants learn the community can fix the inequities.
“First, we must change the archaic mindset that commonly presumes that (racial) employment inequality is not real,” she said.
“We must create a society where the presumption is that all job seekers/workers are entitled to elevated living wage employment and safe fair environments no matter who they are,” she said.
It will take new ideas and solutions, Davis Weese said.
“There are no old school ways that can effectively create change in this new system. The current inequities in the workforce, education and healthcare are real and can only be solved through community commitment and effective collaboration in change,” she said.
“We must make room for culturally welcoming community/workforce environments. Cultural relevancy matters — it’s vital we create a place for all community members to feel welcome and to expand career exploration in our urban schools, the workforce and leave space for training, failure, reflection, and correction,” Davis Weese said.
She said the employment steering committee will continue working on work-related issues and collaborating with other sectors of the task force.
“We will continue to have candid conversation with community members, the workforce community, job seeker and industry partners,” Davis Weese said, adding that workshops are being planned on:
— bystander training;
— effective hiring strategies;
— effective retention strategies;
— identifying persistent bias;
— creating welcoming work cultures.
The eight-day Equity Challenge, which runs through Nov. 21, allows will allow participants to receive daily emails or text messages with links to videos, podcasts and/or reading assignments, each aimed at exploring the impact of systemic racism in the following areas:
Day 1 — Implicit bias and wealth gap
Day 2 — Business
Day 3 — Criminal Justice
Day 4 — Education
Day 5 — Employment
Day 6 — Healthcare
Day 7 — Housing
Day 8 — Mental health
Sign up for the challenge here.
If anyone has signed up for the challenge and not received an email, organizers ask they check their “spam” folder on their email service.
