# Google Diversity Report: Black Women Make Up Only 1.2 %...



## Atthatday (Jun 19, 2018)

*The Switch*

*6-15-18

by Hamza Shaban *

*Google diversity report: Black women make up only 1.2 percent of its U.S. workforce*
* 
*
Google released its annual workforce diversity report Thursday, marking only modest changes from last year. The company remains mostly white and male. But the report offers a better view of what the workforce looks like as the company revealed its gender breakdown across ethnicities for the first time.

Overall, Google's global workforce is 69.1 percent male and 30.9 percent female, virtually unchanged from 2017.

In its breakdown on race and ethnicity, which covers only U.S. employees, 2.5 percent of Googlers are black/African American, up from 2.4 percent in 2017. Figures for Latinx workers also showed a modest improvement. Google reported that 3.6 percent of its workforce is Latinx, compared with last year's 3.5 percent. Asian representation at Google has increased modestly from 34.7 percent in 2017 to 36.3 percent.

When looking at the gender by ethnicity breakdown, women are less represented in the company's U.S. ranks when compared with men. Black women make up only 1.2 percent of the workforce, compared with 1.8 percent for black men. Women identified as Latinx make up 1.7 percent, compared with 3.6 percent for Latinx men; Asian women account for 12.5 percent of the U.S. workforce, compared with 25.7 percent for Asian men. White women make up 15.5 of the workforce, compared with 41.1 percent for white men.

The diversity report arrived after a recent shareholder meeting in which employees and investors called for improvements to workplace culture and better enforcement of policies against harassment. *An investor's proposal that failed to pass would have tied the pay of Google executives to meeting goals for diversity and inclusion.*

The debate around the lack of gender and ethnic diversity in Silicon Valley grew louder last year after an engineer at Google wrote an internal memo claiming that “genetic differences” might explain “why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.” The memo spread quickly online, and its author, James Damore, was fired from the company for “perpetuating gender stereotypes.” Responses to Damore's writing caused further turmoil at Google. Some employees who criticized the memo became targets of online harassment after their names were leaked to conservative websites and commentators.

In its latest diversity report, Google for the first time included new information tied to its hiring and attrition. The company reported that attrition rates were highest for black and Latinx employees, indicating that keeping underrepresented groups fulfilled at work is another challenge for the company. Google reported narrow improvements in hiring for technical positions, with hires for women up 1 percent, Latinx staff up 0.4 percent and black employees up 0.1 percent.

“The data in this report shows that despite significant effort, and some pockets of success, we need to do more to achieve our desired diversity and inclusion outcomes,” Google said in the report.

Danielle Brown, Google’s vice president and chief diversity officer, told The Washington Post in an interview that company officials are admittedly not where they want to be, but she remained optimistic that things can improve.

In January, Brown instituted a new strategy for boosting diversity, which includes sharing the latest representation data with chief executive Sundar Pichai and the leadership team every other week, she said. Department heads are also tasked with meeting intermediate milestones related to hiring, development, progression and retention. One of Google's major goals is to reach or exceed the representation of available talent pools for black and Hispanic employees in the United States at all levels of the company, she said. 

“In order to achieve our desired outcomes, we need to do more, and we are really committed to that,” Brown said.

Alphabet, Google's parent company, has roughly 85,000 employees worldwide, with the vast majority of them working at Google.


----------



## Everything Zen (Jun 19, 2018)

Oh- so Google wouldn’t mind if black women as a whole decided to cancel them as a company then?


----------



## nysister (Jun 19, 2018)

Part of this involves them not being able to keep us. If they created a healthy culture there would be plenty happy to use their knowledge and skills to work there.


----------



## Live.Laugh.Love (Jun 19, 2018)

I really hate us begging white people to do right by us. They are never going to give us a fair chance, and we need to accept that. 

We have to create our own. I always say corporate amaerica ain’t for black folk. But folks think I’m cray cray when I say that. Oh well.

And one thing about creating our own, I hate seeing black folks running/owning companies and they are the only black face. Their businesses be looking all lives matter, they be on some sway ish. Create and then hire black!


----------



## scoobygirl (Jun 19, 2018)

I work for a large tech company that is trying to change our numbers as well. The problem is the changes mandated at the top don't trickle down to the hiring managers who ultimately make the call on who to let through the door.


----------



## janaq2003 (Jun 19, 2018)

Color me shocked


----------



## dicapr (Jun 19, 2018)

Looking at the numbers google isn’t hiring women in general and black women are taking the brunt of it.


----------



## VeryBecoming (Jun 19, 2018)

Unacceptable.


----------



## Cheleigh (Jun 19, 2018)

The other data point it would be important to see is "what" positions these people of color (and all of them have). My company is required not only to list the percentages of gender and ethnicity, we have to do it by job function. What types of jobs do black and Latina women have at Alphabet, for example.


----------



## BrownBetty (Jun 19, 2018)

Agreed!  I know someone who has personally recommended 10+ black folks to his company, 1/2 were women.  1 was hired and the rest were supposedly not cultural fits.  The one who was hired quit after 3 months.  They treated her so poorly.   



scoobygirl said:


> I work for a large tech company that is trying to change our numbers as well. The problem is the changes mandated at the top don't trickle down to the hiring managers who ultimately make the call on who to let through the door.


----------



## natural in ATL (Jun 19, 2018)

BrownBetty said:


> Agreed!  I know someone who has personally recommended 10+ black folks to his company, 1/2 were women.  1 was hired and the rest were supposedly not cultural fits.  The one who was hired quit after 3 months.  They treated her so poorly.


That “cultural fit” line is complete crap and an easy way to maintain bias. We’re not allowed to say that phrase during the hiring process at my company, which I am thankful for.


----------



## scoobygirl (Jun 20, 2018)

BrownBetty said:


> Agreed!  I know someone who has personally recommended 10+ black folks to his company, 1/2 were women.  1 was hired and the rest were supposedly not cultural fits.  The one who was hired quit after 3 months.  They treated her so poorly.


 There is a lot of bias that goes on in these technical interviews and the process isn't applied fairly. I've seen good candidates overlooked because of perception rather than anything concrete. Also folks just not connecting with the interviewer are thought not to be a good fit with the group. I try to get on these interview panels when they ask for volunteers. Hopefully to help make things a little fairer.


----------



## shermeezy (Jun 20, 2018)

scoobygirl said:


> I work for a large tech company that is trying to change our numbers as well. The problem is the changes mandated at the top don't trickle down to the hiring managers who ultimately make the call on who to let through the door.



I work in tech as well and the problem is definitely with the hiring managers. They only hire what is familiar to them and the best jobs require recommendations. Most of the guys in leadership will only recommend people they can relate to. The entire process is inherently biased. Once, you get in, the gas-lightning and constant challenges to your intelligence are exhausting.  You end up working with men who have been sheltered their entire lives and purposely surround themselves with people who look and think just like them. In my experience it's common for these guys to coast on their higher than average IQ and never attempt to develop their common sense or social skills, let alone challenge their racial and gender bias.  They are especially lacking when it comes to dealing with other human beings.  Anytime I come across another women in tech, I immediately offer support because it's tough. It's debilitating going into an office where you're constantly undermined and dealing with daily sexist and racist microaggressions.


----------



## BrownBetty (Jun 20, 2018)

natural in ATL said:


> That “cultural fit” line is complete crap and an easy way to maintain bias. We’re not allowed to say that phrase during the hiring process at my company, which I am thankful for.



They love it in tech.  I have heard some many stories from fellow Black engineers/techies who have been told this. Qualified folks with impressive resumes and worth ethic, I told them it is code for you aren't a white man.  Tech talks big about diversity but isn't committed to doing the work.


----------



## natural in ATL (Jun 20, 2018)

BrownBetty said:


> They love it in tech.  I have heard some many stories from fellow Black engineers/techies who have been told this. Qualified folks with impressive resumes and worth ethic, I told them it is code for you aren't a white man.  Tech talks big about diversity but isn't committed to doing the work.


I work in tech as well. I know that type of forward thinking in the industry is rare, which makes me appreciate it more.


----------



## Atthatday (Jun 20, 2018)

*These 7 graphs lay bare Google's diversity problem*

Isobel Asher Hamilton

Jun 18, 2018, 8:07 AM ET
_





Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Google CEO Sundar Pichai.


_

_*Google has published its 2018 diversity report.*_
_*The figures show that while Google's diversity is improving, it's moving at a very slow pace.*_
_*Numbers of both black and Native American workers at the firm have grown less than 1 percentage point over the past four years. Black US employees are leaving more than any other ethnic group.*_
_*Women make up 30.9% of the workforce but are less represented in leadership and tech roles.*_
_Google published its 2018 annual diversity report this past weekend.

Written by the company's chief diversity and inclusion officer, Danielle Brown, the report shows that while Google's diversity is getting better, improvement is moving at a slow pace.

A Google engineer directly challenged Google's board about diversity earlier this month at the firm's investor meeting. The engineer, Irene Knapp, said the lack of progress on diversity had a "chilling" effect on Google's workforce.

*The overall picture*
This graph shows the ethnic makeup of Google's US workforce. More than half of workers (53.1%) were white, a drop of 2.4 percentage points from 2017.

As a result, the number of staff members from other ethnic backgrounds increased by tiny margins, but they all remained broadly flat. The four-year trend is slighter better for Google: In 2014, 61.3% of its American staff members were white.








Google
Google's overall representation.


Here is the same graph broken down to allow for intersectionality (i.e., the overlap between gender and ethnicity). A "+" indicates the inclusion of people who identify as more than one race as well as people who identify as just one.

It shows that women of all ethnicities were less represented in Google's workforce than men of the same ethnicity. Google's report calls this "unsurprising."







Google
Google's overall diversity presented to highlight intersectionality.


*Leadership roles*
This graph shows the diversity of Google's leadership positions, though the report is unspecific as to what constitutes a "leadership position."

The number of women in leadership positions was up 4.7 percentage points since 2014, with female leaders most recently making up just over a quarter of Google's senior staff.


But the number of black people in leadership positions was up a mere half a percentage point in the past four years, and Latinx people an even tinier 0.2 points.







Google
Google's leadership diversity.


*Tech roles*
The world of tech is not exactly known for its diversity, and the report shows that Google is still mainly recruiting white men. It did not specify what it meant by tech roles, but it's likely to include engineers and other technical staff members.







Google
Google's diversity in tech staff.


General hires were slightly more promising in some respects, with a higher percentage of women and black and Latinx people. The percentage of Asian people hired, however, was lower than in tech.







Google
Google's 2017 hires.



*People leaving Google*
Hires alone don't necessarily correlate to representation; employees leaving the company must also be taken into account.

This is measured by the "attrition index," which indicates how many employees leave Google annually. The global gender attrition index showed that more women than men were staying at the company.

Google
Google's gender-attrition index.


The US attrition index showed that more black employees were leaving than any other group.

Google
Google's US attrition index by ethnicity.


Google noted that the number of black employees departing had "offset" its hiring gains, leading to "smaller increases in representation than we would have seen otherwise."


*Incremental change*
Looking at the stats over the past four years, Google's diversity is improving at a slow rate. The overall female workforce has only increased 0.3 percentage points in four years. The number of black and Native American employees has grown only 0.6 and 0.3 percentage points.

Google
Google's workforce composition 2014 to 2018.


Google
Google's intersectional workforce composition 2014 to 2018.


"Google's workforce data demonstrates that if we want a better outcome, we need to evolve our approach," the report concludes. "That's why from now on ownership for diversity and inclusion will be shared between Google's leadership team, people operations, and Googlers."

"Googler" refers to anybody who works at Google, implying that every Google employee will be held responsible for diversity and inclusion at the company.

"We care deeply about improving workforce representation and creating an inclusive culture for everyone," Google's diversity boss, Brown, told Business Insider in a statement. "While we're moving in the right direction, we are determined to accelerate progress."

*SEE ALSO: A Google engineer got up in front of the board and condemned the firm's 'chilling' diversity failures*
*NOW WATCH: Popular Videos from Insider Inc.*
_


----------



## aminata (Jun 20, 2018)

Looks like the Asians are much better represented.  
They don’t care about us!


----------



## nysister (Jun 21, 2018)

You know a while back I'd started on designing and did preliminary research with regard to creating a much more intuitive search engine but put the project aside in pursuit or more education (which was a good idea) however it's time to at least look at this again.

I've still a lot more to do regarding educational pursuits but this can actually tie in to what im doing and I'll at least do more research to see what's reasonably attainable and whether it makes sense to continue.


----------



## Cheleigh (Jun 21, 2018)

aminata said:


> Looks like the Asians are much better represented.
> They don’t care about us!



Asians (especially Chinese and Eastern Indian) through H1 visas make-up a large percentage of the technical (programmers and engineering) talent for tech companies. So they are always going to makeup a significant percentage of the tech workforce in the Bay Area. Depending on the company though, those percentages change the higher into senior/executive management you get. However, I do believe that there is a significant percentage of Africans also a part of the tech talent landscape that are not well represented in the Bay Area.


----------



## Shula (Jun 21, 2018)

My chronic kid loves tech and was always naturally drawn to it. I worry about her being in an environment this stressful with her health challenges although she's as tough mentally as they come. I had them in a coding bootcamp a few summers ago and PBS interviewed the students. My girls and white kids. Somehow my kids, then chronic kid, ended up being the whole interview. They just stopped engaging the white kids altogether. The father of the white kids was like how does she know all this? What school do they go to? What are you teaching them? It didn't occur to me until afterwards that it was not a complimentary curiosity but a "you people are supposed to be dumb" one. Funny part is, this kid doesn't like to talk a lot to people she doesn't know. She comes across serious and a little moody but when that PBS interviewer started interviewing and she started bringing it even I was surprised at how she opened up. Not surprised at her knowledge but her grasp and ease of explaining concepts. The PBS lady kept thanking me for an amazing piece. The class instructor repeatedly thanked me because he just knew they would air this interview, see these black girls rocking it and bring more business. I'm not sure what the white daddy did or said but PBS still hasn't aired it for some reason. Racist people don't want us in their spaces and def don't want us excelling in their spaces.

Right now, we have a close family friend that is big stuff at Microsoft mentoring my girls. He also has his own tech company and he trains them on various things and pays them well. I've noticed that he teaches and grooms them in a way to work for themselves and is always encouraging them and supporting that. He's Italian. I want to ask him what he thinks about all of this but I suspect he is grooming them to be independent for this and other reasons but this may be a huge part.


----------



## DST1913 (Jun 22, 2018)

Hmm...I went pretty far in the interview process with them and thought because I was so qualified AND a Black woman I would be a shoo in because they needed the diversityof. But nope they rejected me after like 3 interviews.


----------



## Atthatday (Jun 22, 2018)

Yt people are sooo intimidated by us. As described/stated upthread, they don’t want us around because it will show how dumb some of them are.

The pushback is VERY real! I’m more than ready to takeover and: 

#LetBlackWomenRunItAll


----------



## Kiowa (Jun 22, 2018)

DST1913 said:


> Hmm...I went pretty far in the interview process with them and thought because I was so qualified AND a Black woman I would be a shoo in because they needed the diversityof. But nope they rejected me after like 3 interviews.



I'm on my 4th interview, coming up this week....their  entire interview process is extensive..


----------



## DST1913 (Jun 22, 2018)

Kiowa said:


> I'm on my 4th interview, coming up this week....their  entire interview process is extensive..


Good Luck!


----------

