Following the release of similar reports from Google and Yahoo, Facebook has made public its workplace diversity statistics and confirmed that just like its counterparts, minorities are grossly underrepresented.
Facebook has lifted the lid on its workforce diversity figures and…prepare for the least shocking revelation of the week…it’s a tale of mostly men and predominantly whites.
Wednesday’s disclosure was the first of its kind for the social networks and highlighted the fact that must like most other leading tech firms, white and Asian men make up the vast majority of its employee-base. The report followed similar disclosures serves up by LinkedIn, Yahoo and Google over recent weeks, which for the most part told exactly the same tale of a distinct lack of balance and diversity in the workplace.
Google was one of the first to be panned for not diversifying its workforce enough, though exactly what will or can be done to make the apparently necessary improvements remains to be seen.
Critics have insisted that the numbers clear illustrate how important it is for technology companies to further their efforts to include minority groups in their workforces and champion the advancement of female employees. It remains extremely rare to find female workers in executive positions and almost unheard of the women to take the role of CEO – a couple of exceptions exist of course, but generally speaking it’s a rarity.
And just as was the case with the other tech firms in the firing line for not doing enough to further workplace diversity, Facebook has accepted that it isn’t in an ideal position right now has plenty to do to balance things out. The social network giant did however insist that it will reach its diversity goals in the future.
In terms of how it’s to go about doing so, the company’s report stated that it will be modifying its college internship scheme to try and get more minority groups on-board, while at the same time making changes to its general recruitment strategy in order to ensure diversification receives more focus. By contrast, Facebook’s total employee pool is made up of just 2% blacks and 4% Hispanics.
What’s more, the higher the executive ladder is climbed, the starker the reading becomes with almost no women and no minority groups at all being represented at senior management levels.
The figures make interesting reading when taking into account data from the most recent Census on US citizens, of whom 63% are non-Hispanic whites, 13% are African American and just 5% are Asian.
As for Google, the search engine giant likewise pledged its commitment to make concerted efforts to better balance its workplace diversity. In particular, the company insisted that it is not at all happy with the underrepresentation of women at senior levels.
The decision to publicize the figures was that of the companies themselves as while all such businesses are legally obliged to share such information with the government, they aren’t forced to make them public.