Kylie Jenner Faces Backlash After Revealing Only 13% Of Kylie Cosmetics Employees Are Black
Kylie Jenner has revealed that her cosmetics company’s headquarters has a Black workforce that is only 13 percent of her employees. The company has vowed to hire more Black content creators, influencers, and other workers.
Kylie Jenner‘s cosmetics company participated in a an initiative by a number of beauty brands to determine the racial diversity of their employees. While the 22-year-old’s company headquarters is made up of 100 percent women-identifying workers, its number of Black employees is startlingly low. The brand’s Instagram page announced the results on June 7 and it showed that only 13 percent of workers at Kylie Cosmetics/Kylie Skin headquarters are Black, even though a total of 47 percent fell under BIPOC, standing for, “Black, Indigenous, People of Color.” White employees made up 53 percent of the company’s HQ workforce.
Upon sharing the results, the company wrote in the caption of their Instagram post, “Kylie Cosmetics is here for Pull Up for Change, for our team, and for the Black community. We are proud of the diversity within our company, with a team of Black, White, Asian, Native American, Hispanic and Middle Eastern women. As our team grows we commit to a continued focus on ethnic diversity in the workplace and the recruitment of Black employees.”
“The numbers you see above represent the people at our Kylie Cosmetics/Kylie Skin HQ. Our leadership team is made up of two people, Kylie Jenner and Kris Jenner. Thank you @pullupforchange and @heysharonc @uomabeauty for bringing an important issue to the forefront of the conversation in our industry. #PullUpForChange,” the caption continued.
The details of Kylie Cosmetics’ employee racial makeup came as part of the Pull Up for Change initiative. It is part of a direct action movement that was started by Sharon Chuter, the Black founder and CEO of UOMA Beauty. Skin and beauty companies including Estee Lauder, Kora Organics, Shiseido Americas, Sephora, Kate Somerville Skin Care, BH Cosmetics and more shared their employee diversity info, along with Kylie Cosmetics & Skin. Pull Up For Change has posted the results on their Instagram page. Most of the companies had less that 15 percent Black employees on staff, with at least one employing no Black workers at all.
Some fans were thankful for Kylie Cosmetics’ transparency and pledge to do better in hiring Black employees. User imjustjae told the company in the comments, “Thank you! Please continue to support more Black content creators,” and KC responded back, “@imjustjae we plan to and we absolutely will!!” @annieee_d wrote, “Yes this is great! Definitely would love to see more POC as your influencers,” and Kylie Cosmetics told her, “@annieee_d we are working on it!”
But others had more critical words about Kylie Cosmetics’ low number of Black employees. User morganchristina commented, “Hire more. 13% is not enough when African Americans set the trends & standards in the beauty industry,” while malou0127 chastised, “Still more than 50% is white. You can do better.”