Ambitious women and minority technophiles should take Google’s admission of its lack of workplace diversity as fantastic news: therein lies a great opportunity. Not only has the technology giant openly volunteered the fact that the majority of its employees are white and male, but it has pledged to actively try to diversify its workforce. That means that — fairly or not (and probably not) — qualified future applicants who happen to be female and/or non-white will have a competitive advantage over their white male counterparts. If anything, they should have received the news with determined enthusiasm. Predictably, many have not.
Part of the reason for that lack of enthusiasm is that perceptions are often swayed by those outside of the industry. Talk to a code-literate woman who is fluent in various analytic and content management systems, and she’ll tell you she had little trouble finding work. Like Google, many tech companies want to hire more qualified women or minority candidates; the problem is they just don’t get as many applicants. Yet women enrolled in liberal arts programs love to lament the lack of women in computer science and engineering programs. The same thing seems to be happening here.
Google revealed the gender and ethnic makeup of its company on its blog Wednesday, in accordance with a requirement from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Major companies must file a diversity report with the Commission, but the report does not have to be made public. Google opted to publish its numbers in the interest of transparency, according to senior vice-president Laszlo Bock, who added that, “Google is not where we want to be when it comes to diversity.”
“It’s hard to address these kinds of challenges if you’re not prepared to discuss them openly, and with the facts,” Bock said.
The numbers show that of the 44,000 people Google employs worldwide, about 70% are male, and 30% are female. The ethnic breakdown was limited to Google’s 26,600 workers in the U.S., and showed that 61% are white, 30% are Asian, 4% are of two or more races, 3% are Hispanic, 2% are black and less than 1% are “other” (which included native Hawaiian, native American or Alaskan native).
Google is already on top of the issue, having invested over $40-million since 2010 in organizations that aim to get more women and girls in computer science. It is also working with historically black colleges, according to Laszlo, to foster greater engagement in computer science education. Skeptics will maintain that despite Google’s structural efforts, the perception of technology as a white boys’ club will still deter women and minority candidates from entering the industry. But I can’t think of a better way to break down that perception than a company plainly saying, as Google basically has, “We want you.”
The other thing to note amid the hand-wringing over Google’s lack of diversity is that its numbers show overwhelming representation of Asian employees. Whereas the Asian population in the U.S. hovers around 5% to 7%, depending on definition, Asian employees make up 30% of Google’s U.S. workforce. In fact, looking at the data in that light, white people are actually underrepresented at 61%, compared to the wider population at 77%-or-so. Now, lest hysterics take over, that’s not to suggest Google or other Silicon Valley tech companies create affirmative action programs to ensure proportional white representation — just that quick glances at ethnic pie charts don’t give you the big picture.
Google is already taking steps to let underrepresented potential employees know they are interested in their candidacy, and plans to go further by helping to foster greater engagement among certain groups. Whether more women and minority candidates (I suppose, excluding Asian candidates) actually apply is out of Google’s control. Google’s workforce might remain predominantly white and male, and that’s OK. The ones who usually have the biggest problems with it are the ones who wouldn’t apply for a job anyway.
National Post
Robyn Urback • rurback@nationalpost.com | robynurback