Globally, only 18% women occupy Google tech jobs.
By Sujeet Rajan
NEW YORK: An astounding 35% of Google’s total workforce in the US comprise of Asian origin employees, with Whites topping by ethnicity at 59%, according to a new demographic breakdown released by Google, based in Mountain View, California.
Google tried to bridge the gender gap in its workforce by hiring more women globally last year – 21% of its total hiring – yet only 18% of its tech jobs are done by women, showing the huge discrepancy in the workforce, which has been an incessant topic of discussion over the years.
That figure of 18% is just one percentage more than last year. Going just by the US numbers, Google has a better ratio, with women occupying 30% of the jobs vs. 70% held by men.
When it comes to leadership roles within the company, only around 1 in every five such positions go to women, with males again dominating at 78%.
The new figures do not dispel the image of Google, and other tech majors located in Silicon Valley, as being hugely male-centric, and a hive for Asian geeks and tech prodigies, with Hispanics and Blacks a rarity in its environs. Blacks are only 2%, while Hispanic fare little better, standing at 3% of Google’s workforce, tied with employees reporting two or more races.
In the US workforce across industries, 12 percent of the workforce is black and 14 percent is Hispanic. It throws into focus Google’s abysmal record at attracting talent from those two particular ethnicities, or perhaps the lack of tech talent in those communities for top notch jobs.
“Early indications show promise, but we know that with an organization our size, year-on-year growth and meaningful change is going to take time,” said Nancy Lee, Google’s vice president of people operations, in a statement, on the breakdown.