Discrimination against Jews and other minority group members in executive employment should drop substantially in the next five to ten years, two Jewish agencies predicted today in a report on a successful pilot effort to remove such barriers among Philadelphia-based corporations.
Since the program was initiated two years ago by the Philadelphia chapter of the American Jewish Committee and the Philadelphia Jewish Employment and Vocational Service, a number of Philadelphia firms have substantially broadened the hiring and promotion of Jews, with more than 115 Jews having moved into managerial positions and a “significant number” promoted to higher level positions, according to Leon C. Sunstein, Jr., chairman of the executive suite programming committee of the two agencies, and Benjamin S. Loewnstein, president of the Jewish Occupational Council.
They announced a $100,000 program to broaden the effort in Philadelphia and to extend it to Los Angeles, Newark and Boston. Mr. Sunstein said that the methods used in the Philadelphia effort could help, and in some cases did help, to open executive suite doors for members of minorities other than Jews.
The report said that as the program in Philadelphia was expanded and similar programs started in other major cities, “it is our belief that within five years we shall see a substantial decline in the patterns of exclusion of Jews from management level positions in major American industry and finance” with the hope of an end to such exclusion within ten years.
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