14 DAY TRIAL // In the past few months, we’ve been getting a lot of diversity reports straight out of Silicon Valley and beyond, demonstrating that tech companies are really bad at hiring women and people that are not Caucasian.
The most recent report comes from eBay and it gives us all hope that things can be different in the tech industry. While the employee diversity in the ecommerce company may not be perfect just yet, it’s still better than in other companies.
At a global level, the ecommerce company has 42 percent female employees. 28 percent of the company’s leaders are women, eBay says, while the tech jobs go to women in 24 percent of the cases. On the other hand, the non-tech jobs are occupied by women in a proportion of 49 percent, the company says.
In the United States, eBay is also guilty of hiring more white people. 61 percent of the company’s employees in the US are white, while 24 percent are Asian and 7 percent black. Hispanics occupy 5 percent of the jobs.
Leadership jobs are occupied by white employees in a staggering proportion of 72 percent, while Asian employees take over 23 percent of the same spots. Things look a bit different when it comes to splitting the eBay jobs into technical and non-technical. 55 percent of the tech jobs are occupied by Asian employees, while white employees take up 70 percent of the non-tech jobs.
The numbers were offered by eBay after looking at over 33,000 employees from the entire world.
“As a leader in commerce and digital payments, we take diversity seriously. Since eBay was founded in 1995, we have believed in the power of technology to democratize commerce and create more opportunities for all. We believe in the same power of inclusion and opportunity inside our company. Enabling talented people to thrive matters. Diversity matters. It makes us stronger, and makes us better,” the company writes.
While more work needs to be done, eBay is pleased with the global gender diversity and the US ethnic diversity workforce data and promises to publish such transparency reports annually to show its progress.
“While we are committed to fostering all types of diversity, increasing the number of women in leadership roles has been an early focus. About three years ago, eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe launched our Women’s Initiative Network (WIN). The mission of WIN is to attract and engage women to build lasting, successful careers in the company,” the announcement reads.
Apparently, thanks to WIN, the company has managed to double its number of women in leadership roles and has increased the share of leadership positions held by women.