The city also noted a 50 percent increase in the number of women test-takers who passed: 770 this year, compared with 512 in 2002.
According to the city, of the 21,183 test-takers who passed this year, 19 percent were Hispanic, 17 percent were black and 2 percent were Asian. In 2002, 12 percent of the test-takers who passed the exam were Hispanic, 7 percent were black and 2 percent were Asian.
“These impressive results show that people of all backgrounds want to study and train hard to become a New York City firefighter — a great job with great benefits,” said Mayor Bloomberg, who was joined by the fire commissioner, Nicholas Scoppetta, and the commissioner of citywide administrative services, Martha K. Hirst. “The Fire Department’s unprecedented investment in recruiting has paid big dividends, which will now allow us to take a major step toward making sure our uniformed workforce reflects the people they serve each and every day.”
The most recent efforts to diversify the Fire Department date to 2000 and the Giuliani administration, but have shown mixed success. In 2001, the city’s Equal Employment Practices Commission found that the Fire Department scheduled entrance examinations too infrequently, failed to properly verify applicants’ claims of city residency and resisted recommendations to assign minority recruiters in each of the five boroughs — all barriers to recruiting and hiring minorities and women.
Last year, gearing up for the exam this January, the city started a marketing campaign to get more diverse applicants. As The Times reported, instead of the 2002 ad campaign, which portrayed firefighters as noble and heroic, there were “kinder, gentler images aimed at promoting the benefits and flexibility of a firefighter’s lifestyle — a firefighter in civilian dress spending time with her daughter in a park, lieutenants at a backyard barbecue and firefighters playing basketball in a gym.”
Also last year, the city adjusted the requirements for getting hired by reducing academic requirements and allowing job experience to substitute for college course work, even as it lengthened the probationary period for those who pass the test, so as to give the department more time to train and evaluate applicants.
The increase in the number of minority candidates passing this year’s written exam seems due in large part to improved recruitment, which led to more people applying for the job.
This year, 11,918 minority candidates applied to take the exam, compared with 5,569 in 2002. And 1,401 applicants this year were women, up from 878 in 2002.
Of the 21,183 applicants who passed this year’s exam, the 4,000 with the highest scores are the most likely to be hired. Of that group, 18 percent are Hispanic, 12 percent are black and 3 percent are Asian. In the 2002 exam, of the 4,000 top-scoring test-takers, 9 percent were Hispanic, 4 percent were black and 1 percent were Asian.
To be hired, the successful test-takers now must pass a Candidate Physical Ability Test, which is graded on a pass-fail basis and is scheduled to be administered starting in the spring. About 600 probationary firefighters are trained each year at the city’s Fire Academy on Randalls Island. The eligibility list from this year’s firefighters exam will be used to hire firefighters for the next four years. (A later version of this article was published in Wednesday print editions.)
(Article courtesy of The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com )