by Alina Selyukh
The thing about the tech industry and employee diversity reports is they can feel like Groundhog Day:
- Google, 2014: “Put simply, Google is not where we want to be when it comes to diversity.”
- Google, 2016: “We saw encouraging signs of progress in 2015, but we’re still far from where we need to be.”
- Facebook, 2014: “We have more work to do – a lot more. But the good news is that we’ve begun to make progress.”
- Facebook, 2015: “While we have achieved positive movement over the last year, it’s clear to all of us that we still aren’t where we want to be. There’s more work to do.”
- Facebook, 2016: “We still have a long way to go, but as we continue to strive for greater change, we are encouraged by positive hiring trends.”
It’s certainly commendable that tech giants have gotten in the habit of airing their diversity efforts and commit to doing better. But the numbers show that actual progress in hiring more underrepresented minorities — for tech, that’s black, Latino and female — seems to be stuck in neutral.
This month, Google said its total U.S. workforce in 2015 was 2 percent black and 3 percent Hispanic — unchanged from the year before. Women comprised 31 percent of all Google employees globally, up from 30 percent in 2014.
soulbrotherspeaks.com 