by Sharon Florentine

Are tech giants really diversifying their workforce?

Feature
Sep 02, 2015
ComplianceIT LeadershipRelationship Building

It's laudable that so many Silicon Valley firms committed to increasing diversity in their workforce, but there's still a long way to go. CIO.com looks at eight Silicon Valley titans' most recent statistics to see how they're faring a year after pledging to improve diversity.rn

Are tech giants really diversifying their workforce?

Google’s 2014 ‘mea culpa,’ in which it publicly owned up to its startling lack of workforce diversity and vowed to change, set off a firestorm in Silicon Valley and sparked a welcome conversation in the IT industry. By May of 2015, when Google released its (largely unchanged) demographics, many other IT heavyweights had joined in, pledging to increase their own workforce diversity and publicize data to hold themselves accountable to applicants, employees and customers.

Here, CIO.com gathers global gender representation data and U.S.-based workforce ethnicity data on eight Silicon Valley stalwarts to gauge just how successful these diversity initiatives have been.

Methodology: The number of employees is either reported from the companies themselves, or is available through public records or publicly available stockholder information. Data on gender and race/ethnicity is compiled from each company’s self-reporting. Data on gender is measured globally, while race/ethnicity data applies to the U.S. workforce only due to differing privacy/reporting/census reporting statues.

Google’s Diversity Numbers

Google Diversity Numbers

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Google’s first year after publicly announcing its diversity numbers wasn’t spectacular, but there was evidence of progress. Google reported that 21 percent of its tech hires year-over-year were women, and that the hiring of black and Hispanic Googlers outpaced the company’s overall hiring. Based on overall January 2015 numbers, the company’s demographics, based on approximately 57,000 employees, look like the chart shown here.

Men: 70% Women: 30% White: 60% Black: 2 % Hispanic: 3% Asian: 31% Other: less than 1%

Facebook

Facebook diversity numbers

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The social media giant has seen modest gains in diversity over the last year, with a 1 percent increase in its global, overall female workforce year-over-year and a slight increase in the percentage of its workforce who identifies as Asian. Based on the numbers, though, the percentage of its black workforce has remained unchanged at 2 percent. Here’s the most recent demographic data, all 11,000 employees, from June 2015.

Men: 68% Women: 32% White: 55% Black: 2% Hispanic: 4% Asian: 36% Other: 0%

LinkedIn

LinkedIn

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The professional social media networking and content publishing site went transparent with its diversity stats around the same time Facebook did, in June of 2014. Since then, director of global inclusion Sandy Hoffman reports, 43 percent of LinkedIn’s hires have been women, and there’s been an increase in representation in leadership roles among Asian women and men of 2 percent. LinkedIn’s most recent demographics of their approximately 8700 employees looks like this.

Men: 58% Women: 42% White: 56% Black: 2% Hispanic: 4% Asian: 37% Other: less than 1%

Pinterest

Pinterest Diversity Numbers

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Back in 2013, Pinterest engineer Tracy Chou’s Where are the numbers?’ post for Medium.com was ahead of its time in highlighting the lack of diversity in IT and in Silicon Valley and provided an impetus for change at Pinterest. In July, Pinterest laid out its hiring goals and plans for achieving greater diversity on its blog, and is furthering a number of initiatives designed to attract and hire more women and underrepresented groups. Currently, with around 500 employees, Pinterest’s overall demographics look like this:

Men: 58% Women: 42% White: 49% Black: 1% Hispanic: 2% Asian: 43% Other: 1%

Dropbox

Dropbox Diversity Numbers

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Online storage firm Dropbox, which was the subject of an International Business Times piece on Silicon Valley’s dearth of diversity in July, has nonetheless implemented some of the same diversity-driving initiatives as Apple, Pinterest and others. Dropbox’s current overall demographics look like this, with a workforce of over 1,200 employees, according to the company:

Men: 66% Women: 34% White: 56% Black: 1% Hispanic: 4% Asian: 31% Other: 5% (With 4% identifying as two or more races)

Yahoo

6 yahoo

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Yahoo has made some small gains in the year since it first released diversity data, and the company was awarded a score of 100 percent on the Corporate Equality Index, as well as being named a Best Place to Work for LGBT Equality’ by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Currently, with approximately 12,500 employees, Yahoo’s overall workforce demographics break down like this:

Men: 62% Women: 37% White: 47% Black: 2% Hispanic: 4% Asian: 43% Other: 3% (With 2% identifying as more than two races)

Apple

Apple Diversity Numbers

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Apple’s making some fairly decent progress improving diversity. CEO Tim Cook’s blog post on the company’s 2015 diversity numbers states, “In the past year we hired over 11,000 women globally, which is 65 percent more than in the previous year. In the United States, we hired more than 2,200 Black employees – a 50 percent increase over last year – and 2,700 Hispanic employees, a 66 percent increase. In total, this represents the largest group of employees we’ve ever hired from underrepresented groups in a single year. Additionally, in the first 6 months of this year, nearly 50 percent of the people we’ve hired in the United States are women, Black, Hispanic, or Native American,” Cook says in the post. Apple’s current overall demographics break down like this, based on approximately 55,000 workers:

Men: 69% Women: 31% White: 54% Black: 8% Hispanic: 11% Asian: 18% Other: 1% (With 2% identifying as ‘multiple’ races and 6% undeclared).

Intel

Intel Diversity Numbers

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Intel’s not just focusing on its internal corporate diversity, but on improving diversity in its supply chain and with global partners, too. The company’s 2015 midyear progress report outlines Intel’s strategies and initiatives; among them, Intel has pledged to reach full representation and has publicly said it will support initiatives to advance women in gaming and grow a pipeline of diverse talent. Currently, out of approximately 106,000 workers, Intel’s demographics look like the chart above.

Men: Global technical roles: 80% Global non-tech roles: 49% Women: Global technical roles: 20% Global non-tech roles: 51% White: 54% Black: 4% Hispanic: 8% Asian: 32% Other: 1%