Photo courtesy Apple
It's that time again: tech companies release their employee diversity reports and tech writers get to pore over it and sound the clarion call for, yes, more diversity! It's good for business, as common wisdom and rigorous academics show. Apple just released their latest diversity report. Where are they running short?Well, the gender gap is still a problem, and women in tech remains a perennial issue for any tech company. And like most tech companies, non-white and non-Asian leadership is running extremely short. In raw numbers, Apple is actually performingpretty wellin making sure their Hispanic and black workers are represented. For reference: blacks and Hispanics make up 13 and 17 percentof the US population.Compare that to Google:Here's Facebook:And that's just for general employees. The problem resurfaces when you get into the tech and leadership roles.We're not going to list the rest of the companies because at this point we're picking out minute differences, but the bottom line is this: women are still outnumbered 4 to 1 in tech roles, and blacks and Latinos are still highly underrepresented in tech and leadership roles.And the problem of underrepresentation surfaces in very ugly ways: prospective minority workers may see that they're not being represented in the field they're going in. Apple had a lot to say to their own credit, and they are doing something to help the next generation of tech workers.But the grandiose changes they promise won't happen at the drop of a hat, especially when the rest of the industry seems set in its ways, as far as the numbers go year by year.
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