Sacramento hires women least, lays off Latinos most in city employment, audit says

In Sacramento, 77.8% of employees laid-off from city agencies in the past three years were Hispanic or Latino, according to a city audit. White individuals made up 61.5% of management hires. Only 32.4% of total hires were women.

In city government and public agencies, people of color and women face some of the most disparate applicant, hiring, and separation rates compared to the general city resident composition, according to the audit presented to City Council on Tuesday.

The audit compiled and reviewed data from February 2021 to February 2024, said Jordan Sweeney, principal fiscal policy analyst at the Office of the City Auditor, during the presentation.

This was the city’s second time performing the diversity assessment, and it plans to continue conducting this type of analysis every three years, Sweeney said.

In light of the 29.4% rate of city residents who are Hispanic or Latino, the ethnic group was the most underrepresented among applicants, with a rate of 22.3% out of all applicants — a trend Sweeney said was also observed in the previous three-year audit.

The disparity was even more stark in the data on layoffs, out of which Latino or Hispanic individuals made up 77.8%.

This statistic can be traced to “intermittent layoffs” every summer in YPCE for the START program, Sweeney said. The START program, an academic enrichment program that serves the Robla Unified School District, laid off employees at the beginning of each summer and re-hired them six to seven weeks later.

YPCE no longer lays off START employees at the beginning of the summer due to additional grant funding starting in 2023, Sweeney said.

Overall, the city appeared to hire white individuals more frequently compared to their applicant numbers, while Black and Asian hire rates were lower than their applicant numbers.

White individuals were hired at a rate of 48% compared to an applicant rate of 28%, while Black and Asian individuals were hired at rates of 9.4% and 9% respectively compared to their applicant rates of 15.9% and 13.2%.

Councilman Eric Guerra noted that Asian and Hispanic or Latino applicant rates were both lower than their city resident counterparts. Hispanics and Latinos make up 29% of city residents, while Asians make up 16%.

“That, to me, means we have an outreach problem,” Guerra said during council remarks. “I want to make sure we look at why that is.”

There also appeared to be a disparity between applicant and hire rates for women. Women made up about 49% of applicants — similar to their city resident demographic — but only 32% of hires, the data showed.

The city hired white individuals far more often for management positions. White individuals made up 61% of full-time management employees compared to an application rate of 36%.

In July, the city began publishing dashboards that present yearly data on gender and ethnic diversity in city hiring. Though the Tuesday audit did not include analysis of salaries, the dashboards include breakdowns on salary by gender and ethnicity.

The salary data appear to reveal pay gaps in gender and ethnicity, with men often earning more than women of the same ethnic group and salary averages also varying between ethnic groups. For example, white men earned $115,000 annually on average compared to white women, who made $85,000. Black men made $70,000 on average, while Black women made $54,000.

This story was originally published August 21, 2024 at 7:00 AM.