Black and Hispanic Employees Often Get Stuck at the Lowest Rung of the Workplace

For all of the effort companies have poured into hiring and advancing people of color, those moves rarely benefit the biggest—and most diverse—pool of workers they employ: the millions of low-wage workers in America’s stores, warehouses, plants and other front-line workplaces.

Companies have devoted no shortage of resources and rhetoric to making their corporate and management ranks more racially diverse in recent years—from recruiting more at historically Black universities and colleges to appointing more executives from minority backgrounds to boards and senior leadership teams.