On Wednesday, Google released data to the public, which shows the diversity of the company's workforce. As it stands, the Google workforce mostly consists of white males, while only 2 percent of all employees are Black, 3 percent Hispanic, and a third of the workforce Asian.
When it comes down to the gender breakdown, 70 percent is male, while the remaining 30 percent is female. In addition, the leadership positions mainly consists of males, as over 80 percent of those jobs are held by male employees, and 20 percent by females.
As per Google, the transparency of its workforce is very important to the company going forward, which means in the coming years we should see more women in the workplace, along with significant gender diversity.
"We've always been reluctant to publish numbers about the diversity of our workforce at Google. We now realize we were wrong, and that it's time to be candid about the issues. Put simply, Google is not where we want to be when it comes to diversity, and it's hard to address these kinds of challenges if you're not prepared to discuss them openly, and with the facts," says Google in a blog post.
This is a great first step by Google, but considering that only 10 percent of Blacks and Hispanics are college graduates, and only 18 percent of women graduate with a computer science degree, this report shouldn't be too surprising.
Some are saying Google has a lot of work to do, but this should not be the case. If fewer women, Blacks and Hispanics are in the computer sciences field, then there's not much Google can do to improve its diversity.
Instead of focusing on hiring the right gender or race, Google's focus should solely be on hiring the right person who is most capable of doing the job. Moreover, if there are more Whites than Hispanics, or more Men than Women who are capable of performing to the right standards, then those are the persons Google should hire.
At the end of the day though, racial diversity groups and feminists might have a lot to say about Google's workforce and where it is right now, but like many occasions before, these groups have shown a tendency of failing to think on a rational level.
Bear in mind, the author of this article is a Black male.
