African-American and Latino cashiers, salespeople and first-line managers are paid less, are less likely to be promoted off the floor and more likely to be poorer than their white counterparts in the retail industry, a new study showed Tuesday.
The study, done by the NAACP and Demos, a public policy organization, found that in the major jobs held by retail workers, African-Americans are paid the least, followed by Hispanics. They also are less likely to get full time jobs instead of part time and are underrepresented in management positions.
This could be a problem in the future for retail with the number of minorities in the United States steadily increasing, said Catherine Ruetschlin, a Demos senior policy analyst and co-author of the report.
“If workers from those racial and ethnic categories continue to be systematically excluded from opportunity, that means that our labor market will be serving less than half the population in a way that’s really meaningful for families who want to pursue the American dream,” Ruetschlin said.
There are 10 million non-Hispanic whites, 2.3 million Hispanic, 1.9 million African-American and 800,000 Asian workers in the retail industry.
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