Following in the footsteps of several other major tech companies, Apple has released a diversity report on the sex and race of its employees (via Re/code). As is common in the tech industry, the majority of Apple's workforce is male -- only three out of 10 employees around the globe are female. Broken down, males compose 65 percent of non-tech workers, 80 percent of tech workers, and 72 percent of Apple's leadership.
In the United States, across tech, leadership, and non-tech, Apple's workers are 55 percent white, 15 percent Asian, 11 percent Hispanic, and 7 percent Black. Nine percent of workers declined to state their ethnicity, one percent selected other, and two percent listed more than one race.
According to CEO Tim Cook, he is unhappy with Apple's diversity numbers and says Apple is working to improve them.
Apple is committed to transparency, which is why we are publishing statistics about the race and gender makeup of our company. Let me say up front: As CEO, I’m not satisfied with the numbers on this page. They’re not new to us, and we’ve been working hard for quite some time to improve them. We are making progress, and we’re committed to being as innovative in advancing diversity as we are in developing our products.
During his tenure as CEO, Cook has taken steps towards improving Apple's diversity by boosting Apple's female leadership. Cook hired Angela Ahrendts as the head of retail and Susan Wagner was recently added to Apple's board, joining existing female board member Andrea Jung. Cook has also overseen the hire of Lisa Jackson, who oversees the company's environmental affairs, and the promotion of Denise Young Smith to head of human resources. Apple is a sponsor of the National Center for Women & Information Technology, which aims to get women involved in technology.
In its report, Apple suggests that its company diversity beliefs go beyond race and gender, pointing to its involvement in the Human Rights Campaign. Under Cook, Apple has supported the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which lobbied to add lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals to the U.S.'s existing nondiscrimination law. Apple also recently participated in San Francisco's Gay Pride event and the company has long had protections for its LGBT employees.
Update 1:30 PM PT: Apple has posted the Diversity video from its Diversity page on YouTube.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
Top Rated Comments
As a white guy Silicon Valley Engineer who finds it harder and harder to find chip design jobs (thank God I'm in a good one right now), I really wish the Valley went back to the "we don't give a rat's @$$ what you look like, just be excellent and proactive at your job" model that used to prevail here.
What really needs to be looked at is the incredibly monolithic look most chip design teams have these days. They're not white, they're 90% Indian-Pakistani, with a smattering of Chinese people here and there. This in no way matches the output from engineering schools. H1B visa abuse by employers has truly changed the Silicon Valley landscape.
This day in age, it's important to satisfy "everyone" with diversity, every one is so easily offended and hyper-sensitive that it's pathetic.