We’re giving minorities in New York more reasons to be optimistic about the future: Montefiore CEO on hiring initiative

Montefiore CEO Dr. Philip Ozuah joins Yahoo Finance’s On The Move panel to discuss why companies pledged to hire minority New Yorkers amid the pandemic.

Video Transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: And welcome back to Yahoo Finance "On The Move." There has been a push here in New York City to help hire 100,000 New Yorkers by 2030. This would include 25,000 students from the City University of New York, what we call CUNY, and they're partnering with the CEOs from several major companies. But we have the CEO from one of the leaders of this group, Dr. Philip Ozuah, the CEO of Montefiore, and that's a hospital system here in New York City.

We appreciate your being here. And what kind of demand are you and the other CEOs seeing for the necessity to hire these 100,000 people? And I should point out, they're people who will come from underrepresented communities of color.

PHILIP OZUAH: Thank you very much. Well, you know, New York has been devastated, as you know, by COVID-19 and by unemployment. And actually, in the Bronx, where our flagship hospital is based-- the Bronx is ravaged by unemployment at almost 25%. And so Jamie Dimon called me out of the blue and asked if I would be part of this, and we said, of course.

The idea is to create-- as you said, give New Yorkers 100,000 more reasons to be optimistic about the future, break the cycle of poverty, replace it with a cycle of upward mobility, create a more diverse workforce, a more robust community, and a more sustainable future. We believe that we will have needs for tens of thousands of jobs. And to take underserved youth and train them and give them the skills that would be needed for those jobs I think we'll give New Yorkers something to be hopeful for and hopefully get us back on our feet.

JULIE HYMAN: Dr. Ozuah, it's Julie here. Talk to me about, in practical terms, where the resources and where the demand is going to come from. And I say that because I know, in particular in the medical community and at Montefiore, you are you were hit quite hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Do you need those doctors? If you need those doctors, where's the funding going to come from to pay those doctors, and are there as many folks out there getting into the medical field right now, with the current world that we're seeing?

PHILIP OZUAH: Thanks a lot, Julie. And so this is about a full range of skills and employees. So it's doctors. It's nurses. But it's also technicians. It's diagnostic technicians. It's sonographers. It's folks that can work in digital health.

So we're looking at what the future of medicine is going to be like and what will be needed. Medicine is evolving and will evolve more, based on COVID-19, much more digital health, as you know. And so the resources will come from us. We, the CEOs in this jobs council, are uniting to say we want to support New York. So we will work with the educational institutions and essentially help to train and create people who would have the skills that we believe we will need in our industry and then go ahead and employ them.

BRIAN CHEUNG: Dr. Ozuah, it's Brian Cheung here. I want to ask about the issues of economic inequality, which it sounds like you're trying to address to this new initiative. We know that Black and Hispanic communities across the country, but also in New York City, have been disproportionately affected by this crisis. It's kind of exposed a lot of vulnerabilities in our system for maybe unequal access to the health care system, for example. What other things are Montefiore and the other partners that you're working with right now focused on maybe in the medium term or, you know, somewhere down the line to try to make sure that some of those structural, systemic issues are resolved so that there is more access to health care and there is a little bit more equity in access to those types of things?

PHILIP OZUAH: You are so right, Brian. What COVID-19 did was reveal these underlying, longstanding disparities, in-- both social, economic, and other. Montefiore has a long history-- Montefiore and I have a long history over decades and decades of a commitment to underserved communities. We not only provide health care, we provide tens of thousands of jobs in the Bronx. We provide housing. We're involved in the schools.

We're in dozens of schools with educational programs and partnerships. We have summer mentorship programs that we run. Just in the last three years, Brian, 3,000 students went through our summer mentorship program, many of whom went on to be employed by us. So we're doing everything that we can to be partners and to be of the community, and not just in the community. But one health care system cannot solve all of these issues alone-- housing, food deserts, violence, poverty, employment, and so on. So we need partners, and that's why we're excited about this new CEO jobs council.

AKIKO FUJITA: Dr. Ozuah, how do you approach this more holistically? You've got about 27 firms that are represented here. How do you make sure that these jobs that are created are well-paying jobs, are full-time jobs, jobs that can support minorities of color?

PHILIP OZUAH: Right. Well, I think we each have to own our piece of it. And so I can speak for the Montefiore piece. I will let you know that the jobs that we create at Montefiore are well-paying jobs, and they're jobs that come with benefits.

They come with health care. They come with retirement. They come with family benefits, dependents, and they change the lives of individuals and their communities. We have-- although we have 25,000 employees, we have about 100,000 people in total that depend on those jobs. They are dependents and extended family.

So I can speak for the Montefiore piece. I do believe that all the other CEOs involved in this have the same passion and the same sincerity in helping New Yorkers get back on their feet.