Hiring of minorities and women for stepping-stone TV directing jobs is lagging, according to a Directors Guild of America study.
The study released Wednesday focuses on “first break” jobs the guild called critical in increasing diversity in the ranks of episodic TV directors.
Of the 153 people hired during the 2015-16 season to direct their first TV episode, 15 percent were ethnic minorities — a hiring rate that has remained flat over the past seven seasons, the annual study found.
For women, there was a slight upward trend in hiring, but it was part of a fluctuation since 2012 that falls within the same stubborn range, the guild said.
Within the last three years, for example, hiring of first-time female directors fell from 23 percent to 16 percent and then returned to 23 percent, researchers found.