Google Inc. has admitted on Tuesday, June 2nd, that the company is still dominated by white men in terms of employees and that they still have to go a long way to reach the much desired diversity they have been aiming for.
The statement came in its second annual diversity report. “It is hard to address these kinds of challenges if you’re not prepared to discuss them openly, and with the facts,” they added.
Right now it seems that the vast majority of Google’s workforce is represented by men, who cover 70 percent of the number of employees. Moreover, it seems that 60 percent of these men are white.
The tech department is also more predominantly male – 82 percent of the people working there are white and 59 percent of them are male.
The leadership does not show much gender and racial diversity either -only 22 percent of the people at the top of the company are women.
This means that 78 percent of the people who have leading positions in the company are male and it seems that 72 percent of them are white.
This comes as quite surprising news, given the fact that the behemoth company decided to focus and invest in diversity quite large sums of money. Last month, they announced that they were willing to invest no less than $150 million into the much desired diversity. They planned to use half of it to hire more people belonging to minority groups and women. The other half would go to various organizations and communities.
Last year the company offered $115 million for their diversity dream. According to them, this would be an important investment in the company’s own goals: “We’re working toward a Web that includes everyone … It’s going to take time to get there,” they said.
However, the company is not willing to give up its commitment to employing “talented and diverse people.”
In order to set this plan in motion, their engineers were sent to black universities to look for fresh talents among people belonging to minority groups.
Moreover, Google representatives were willing to provide substantial scholarships for such students, as well as to students who have disabilities and to women.
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