The Tech Industry's Diversity Problem Comes to Light
The tech industry is forward-thinking when it comes to the next big trend or the best piece of software to complement that expensive new phone, but in some critical areas, it’s also stuck in the past. One failing tied to so many players in the business is a lack of diversity, which was recently pushed into the spotlight by the companies themselves.
It all started with Google, which came out this summer as the first major tech company to publish its demographics. After this unprecedented move, organizations like LinkedIn, Yahoo, and eventually Facebook followed suit by releasing their own sets of numbers.
Why hide them in the first place? If you take a quick look at the data, it becomes clear that the tech industry has a diversity problem that’s yet to be fully addressed. About 70 percent of employees at Google are men, with 91 percent being either white or Asian. That means that just 9 percent of Google’s crew are either black, Hispanic, or of another ethnicity.
Facebook’s numbers are even more jarring. In terms of gender, 77 percent of the employees are male, with the ethnicity breakdown pinning 93 percent as either white or Asian. The other companies that joined Google in unearthing their data sport similar figures.
Tech companies have been trying to keep this information secret for quite some time. A multiyear investigation by Mike Swift of the San Jose Mercury News showed that these organizations have gone beyond simply refusing to share their data—they went as far as to fight to keep it all under wraps.
What’s strange is that all four of these tech giants—Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Yahoo—made their data public within a month of one another. Slate states that a source close to the situation heard discussions among these groups about sharing diversity numbers over the past two months, but for now, this can’t be confirmed. What we do know is that this information blitz has made it more difficult to target a single company for its lack of diversity, considering they all have such similar numbers that were made known almost at once.
Major tech companies are simply behind the curve when it comes to diversity, but they at least recognize the problem. Google's senior vice president, Laszlo Bock, stated, “But we’re the first to admit that Google is miles from where we want to be—and that being totally clear about the extent of the problem is a really important part of the solution.” How long it will take to find a solution, though, is still unclear.
