Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) is starting on the long road to have a workforce with adequate representation of women and minorities. Over a year ago Google published its diversity statistics that resulted in many other tech firms doing the same. The organization would constantly be updating its diversity page with the latest statistics.
70% of Google’s workforce is male. The majority of employees are white (60%) and Asian (31%). Only 3% of the employees are Latinos. African Americans constitute a mere 2% of the workforce. The statistics go against Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s mission to have the organization reflect the diversity of its clients in America as well as globally.
According to Google, though it has a long way to get to adequate representation in terms of minorities and women, some progress is clearly visible now.
We look at some latest statistics:
• Women made up 21% of the technical staff that Google recruited last year. As a result, the percentage of women in technology related jobs at Google increased 1%.
• Women constituted 22% of software developers recruited via campus outreach. Incidentally, this is greater than the percentage of women majoring in computer science today (18%).
• The percentage rise in recruiting Black and Hispanic individuals was greater than Google’s hiring growth.
The following are statistics for Google’s leadership ranks and non-technical resource pool.
African Americans constituted 4% of non-technical employees a rise from 3% a year ago. Female representation in the non-technical workforce declined from 48% a year ago to 47% this year. Hispanics representation was unchanged at 4%.
Women constitute 22% of Google’s leadership roles a rise from the 21% figure of the previous year. However, there was no increase in Hispanic and African American representation in leadership roles.
In an interview with USA TODAY, Google’s vice president of people operations, Nancy Lee opined that Google was getting better at improving gender diversity.
Somewhat shocked at the revelations Google and other technology firms are trying hard to increase the number of underrepresented groups. To this end, they are spending money on programs encouraging female, black people and Hispanics to do technology related courses and increasing hiring of students belonging to the minority groups.
