Boston panel: strong gains on race and pay categories but city lags on residents in construction jobs

Boston City Council members and labor staff on April 18 reviewed new data and enforcement work under the Boston Residents' Jobs Policy, finding the city has improved representation by people of color on construction sites but still falls short of the ordinance's residency and women‑employment targets.

“On April 15 we are 40% people of color, 6.7% women, and 23.5% Boston residents,” said Jody Sugarman Brossan, Deputy Chief of Worker Empowerment and head of the Office of Labor Compliance and Worker Protections, pointing to a public dashboard the city published for BRJP compliance. Christopher Brown, manager for the BRJP monitoring office, told the committee that the office monitored 148 projects from October 2024 through March 2025 and that the six‑month audit covered roughly 5 million total work hours, with an aggregate of about 21% Boston resident hours, roughly 42% people of color and about 7% women.

The discrepancy between the real‑time dashboard snapshot and the six‑month monitoring totals was highlighted by councilors during the hearing. “That data shows we are still missing out — the compliance rate is low,” said Michael Endale, senior data analyst at the Boston Planning…