The recent employment figures measured in terms of diversity reveals that Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), all the three big companies are sailing in the same boat. Last week, Yahoo released the numbers where it stated that Hispanics made up 4% of its workers while African Americans stood at 2%. These numbers come after the social media giant Facebook disclosed that it recruited just 81 blacks in its total workforce of 5,500 U.S. workers in 2014.
Change in trend
Until last year, Facebook, Apple and Google, among others, declined to reveal workforce diversity data. Now there is a significant change in the trend with the big names reporting the data. However, the disclosed numbers indicate that Silicon Valley is still finding it hard to deal with the diversity problem.
It is a contentious matter that has grabbed the industry’s focus in past few months. The tech companies have sheepishly reported updates on their recruiting of minorities. They have pledged that things will improve in the coming period.
Recruitment of Asians
The one promising factor as revealed by workforce diversity data is that Asians form a major part of tech companies’ workforce. In fact Asians have been recruited at much higher rates compared to other minority groups. At Facebook, 41% of the technical workforce is formed of Asians. The large percentage of Asians in the total U.S. workforce can largely be attributed to the recruitment of skilled people, concentrated primarily from China and India.
The qualifications
The companies stated that lack of requisite talent lead to the skewed diversity statistics. There are few number of Hispanic and black students who pursue computer science degrees. However, fresh data reveals that there are increased numbers of Hispanic and Black graduates who are completing tech degrees from top schools.
In 2014, almost 4.1% of the black students pursued bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, and information technology. The number is double of the average of black students recruited at the biggest tech companies including Google, Yahoo and Facebook.
The numbers
The largest companies in the field of technology also lag in their recruitment of minorities for marketing, sales, and public relation jobs. As per a report, at Google, Hispanics and Blacks accounted for merely 4% of company’s total non-technical workforce in 2014.
At Facebook, blacks accounted for 3% of its total non-tech workers in May, while Hispanics formed 7%. When it comes to the overall workforce in the U.S., the numbers are sheepish with blacks and Hispanics accounting for 13% and 16% of total workforce, respectively.
Sources: washingtonpost.com
