Madison Ave. Charts Some Progress in Meeting Diversity Hiring Goals

An initial report card on efforts to diversify the long-homogeneous upper ranks of Madison Avenue shows some improvement, but much more left to be done. Fifteen ad agencies set two goals for themselves: one for hiring managers and one for hiring professionals like copywriters. The goals were expressed in terms of percentages of new hires who were black, Hispanic or Asian-American. According to the summary, the 15 agencies had hoped that 18 percent of the total managerial and professional employees they hired last year would be minorities, and the actual percentage was higher, at 25 percent. The goal for 2008 for both categories combined is 19 percent. Only one agency, Merkley & Partners, part of the Omnicom Group, missed both its goals, while four others -- three of them also owned by Omnicom -- missed one goal each. Omnicom executives said that in some cases, the goals were missed because there were no hires, period, in the categories in question.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/business/media/16adco.html?ref=todayspaper
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