14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook has unveiled its diversity report and it’s not at all surprising considering the general state of companies in Silicon Valley.
Facebook’s results are typical for companies in the tech industry. At a global level, the social network employs 69 percent men, while in the United States, white males dominate the chart at 57 percent. Asians follow second with a 34 percent presence.
Facebook adopted exactly the same stance as Google, Yahoo, LinkedIn and all other companies that decided to share a diversity report. Basically, it said that it needed to “do better,” which is extremely obvious.
“At Facebook, diversity is essential to achieving our mission. We build products to connect the world, and this means we need a team that understands and reflects many different communities, backgrounds and cultures. Research also shows that diverse teams are better at solving complex problems and enjoy more dynamic workplaces. So at Facebook we’re serious about building a workplace that reflects a broad range of experience, thought, geography, age, background, gender, sexual orientation, language, culture and many other characteristics,” reads a note signed by Maxine Williams, head of diversity.
While white employees amount for 57 percent of the US workforce and Asians for 34 percent, Hispanics only account for 4 percent and blacks for 2 percent.
The tech departments at Facebook look even worse. 85 percent of employees are male, data shows. The situation is slightly better in non-tech departments, where 53 percent of the employees are male, while women take up 47 percent of the available jobs.
Senior level positions are taken over by 77 percent males, while women only account for 23 percent of these jobs, making for a huge difference. Also, 74 percent of all individuals in a leading position are white, 19 percent are Asian, while the rest account for other races.
Williams notes that the numbers aren’t all that great, but the good news is that they’ve been making progress. If this is progress, it begs the question “how much worse was it before?”
“Diversity is something that we’re treating as everyone’s responsibility at Facebook, and the challenge of finding qualified but underrepresented candidates is one that we’re addressing as part of a strategic effort across Facebook. Since our strategic diversity team launched last year, we’re already seeing improved new hire figures and lower attrition rates for underrepresented groups,” Facebook said.
The company has decided to start implementing a series of programs and strategies to increase the overall pool of talent by involving other organizations that work to achieve the same goals into a partnership.
