Ad agencies will hire more black managers

New York’s leading advertising agencies agreed to hire more black managers last week after the city’s Human Rights Commission found that only 2 percent of industry leaders are black, The New York Times reported.

Of the 8,000 employees working for 16 agencies that earn more than $100,000 a year, only 2.5 percent are black, the commission found.

Nearly a dozen agencies have promised to set numerical goals for increasing black representation on their creative and managerial staffs and to report on their progress each year. The agencies will be monitored by the city for three years.

The commission has the authority to fine companies up to $250,000 or to sue them, but officials said that they believed the threat of pressure from agency clients like Pepsi and Citigroup was a more effective stick in bringing corporate leaders to the negotiating table.

“This represents a concrete step in the right direction,” a senior executive at a leading agency said, because until now “no agreement has ever been signed by any agency on this issue.” Whatever efforts have been made before have been voluntary and informal, the senior executive said.