Google's Employee Demographics: Mostly White, Mostly Male

[onehandle]

Google released demographic data on its nearly 50,000 employees for the first time Wednesday.

The gist: Google employees are predominantly men (70%) and predominantly white (61%).

"Google is not where we want to be when it comes to diversity," Laszlo Bock, Google's senior vice-president of people operations, wrote in a blog post, "And it’s hard to address these kinds of challenges if you’re not prepared to discuss them openly, and with the facts."

The gender data shared is global for all Google's 50,000 employees, while the ethnicity data is strictly for the company's U.S. employees. Overall, 70% of Google employees are male, and 91% of U.S. employees are either white or Asian. Google's leadership is even less diverse: 79% of Google's leadership is male, while 72% of its leadership is white.



http://mashable.com/2014/05/28/google-employee-demographics

[Common Sense Party]

1. What are the demographics of applicants?

If there are significantly more women and hon-Asian minorities applying but not getting hired, that's a problem.

[FSogol]

2. Did somebody say something bad about Apple today?

[LAGC]

7. No doubt.

I wonder what Apple's employee demographics breakdown looks like? Inquiring minds want to know...

(Probably even whiter and more male.)

[OhioChick]

11. No, yesterday

Racism Complaint Filed Against Tech Giant Apple-‘Black Employees Don’t Reach Management’

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025018684

[alp227]

3. Maybe that reflects the pool of applicants.

If more grade schools in the USA taught coding, the pool of tech-interested black and Latino kids would grow enough to make an impact on the diversity of US tech workers. I say this about affirmative action for college admissions too: the best form of affirmative action begins at childhood with college prep and all that.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

9. My girlfriend works in high tech and when she was an undergrad...

she was almost without exception the only American born female in most of her classes and the other women were mostly from Taiwan and went home after graduating. You can't hire people who don't exist.

[951-Riverside]

4. Actually this explains why they are a successful multi-billion dollar corporation.

...while more diverse mega corps like McDonald's, Walmart, UPS, Fedex, Home Depot, Lowes, Dominoes, NBA, NFL and the entertainment industry are barely hanging on.

[Crabby Appleton]

5. BS in Computer Science graduates mostly white, mostly male

According to the Computer Research Association

http://cra.org/govaffairs/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/CRA_Taulbee_CS_Degrees_and_Enrollment_2011-12.pdf

"The fraction of women among bachelor’s graduates in CS increased to 12.9 percent in 2011-12, compared to 11.7 percent in 2010-11."

see table 5 for breakdown by ethnicity

64% White
16% Asian
4.5% Black
6.3 Hispanic

[AgingAmerican]

6. My Bachelors Degree is in software engineering

When I was at the UW, in the group I went through the degree with, there were five females out of perhaps 50 people. At least a quarter of the students I went through the degree with were high functioning autistic and probably 1/3 of the professors who taught us were high functioning autistic.

Point being there are relatively few women in the software industry. Google at 30% is pretty high, from my perspective.

Women programmers are highly coveted in the industry simply because they think (and thus write code) differently than men. More women should pursue software degrees.

[AngryAmish]

8. Why are asians so overrepresented?

Around 5x their population percentage.

[alp227]

10. Please think again about your message.

If you wrote about Jews being over represented in the media or blacks over represented in basketball, your post would be hidden in 2 minutes.

[Comrade Grumpy]

12. Huh? We can't talk about demographics in a thread about demographics?

Is it the use of the word "overrepresented"?

Is "disproportionately represented" better?

"Blacks are disproportionately represented in the NBA."

"Blacks are disproportionately represented in the US prison population."

Both statements are true (although they require plenty of unpacking). It's a sad discussion board where you can't make true statements.

[alp227]

13. Not what I'm saying at all.

It's one thing to discuss the bare facts in a neutral tone, another to use loaded language like "over represented".

[Comrade Grumpy]

14. Okay. Although I'm not sure how "loaded" "over-represented" is.

Maybe it's in the eye of the beholder. To me, over-represented (or under-represented) is just another way of saying disproportionately represented.

[alp227]

15. Think about this.

A common conspiracy theory claims that Jews are over-represented in media, government, and other elite institutions. That is why "over-represented", "disproportionately represented", etc are loaded language that take a fact and turn it into a negative opinion.

[Comrade Grumpy]

18. Okay, I give. How do you comment on such matters? Or do you just not comment at all?

How do you discuss why blacks are over-represented in Americans prisons if you can't mention that they are?

"There is a higher percentage of black people in prison in America than their percentage of the population" just seems like a longer way of saying "blacks are over-represented in American prisons."

[alp227]

20. Justify your opinion about over representation with evidence.

For your example about blacks in prisons, provide an explanation WHY you think it's disproportionate, such as biased justice system/poverty/the war on drugs/what have you, so that it doesn't sound like a snide remark. If you want to make an argument about something, YOU carry the burden of proof behind it, instead of relying on the often-unreliable interpretations of your audience.

In contrast, if I quizzed someone who made a "Jews over represented in media" argument, the only reason the artist would give is what DU TOS call claims of "claiming nefarious influence by Jews/ Zionists/Israel."

Bottom line is, if you want to make an argument, make the argument, instead of relying on listeners to infer it from vague, loaded language.

[AgingAmerican]

16. A lot of India folks in the industry

Demographically Indians are Asian I believe.

[Egnever]

17. yet when one looks at upper management they seem to be doing pretty well

https://www.google.com/intl/en_us/about/company/facts/management/

Women certainly could have more representation but there is no lack of diversity there.

And when you compare it to apple they are kicking ass.

http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/

Not to mention google is concerned about it. Apple, not so much.

[IDemo]

19. Google's mother was a hamster

and its father smelt of elderberries.