Facebook just released its employee diversity report, and here’s our chart comparing it to Google, Yahoo, and LinkedIn. While you could conclude that Facebook is a bit more diverse than Google and a bit less than the others, they all get an F for being heavily skewed male, white and asian. Facebook comes in at 69% male worldwide, while in the US it’s 57% white, 34% asian, 4% hispanic, 2% black, and 3% two-plus races.
As for the breakdowns by job type, Facebook’s technical talent is 85% male, while non-tech team members are 53% male, and senior level employees are 77% male.
As for ethnicity across job types, Facebook technical employees are 53% white, 41% asian, 3% hispanic, and 1% black. Non-tech employees are 63% white, 24% asian, 6% hispanic, and 2% black. And senior level employees are 74% white, 19% Asian, 4% hispanic, and 2% black.
Google prompted the trend of more diversity transparency when it released its report last month. Yahoo and LinkedIn followed suit, and now Apple and Amazon are beginning to stand out for not releasing theirs.
Facebook outlined a number of initiatives its Strategic Diversity team has been working on to enhance equality amongst genders and ethnicities. Facebook University is a program that provides undergraduate freshmen from underrepresented groups with internships at Facebook. It has partnerships with Girls Who Code, Code 2040, the National Society of Black Engineers, and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and Management Leadership for Tomorrow. It’s working with Yes We Code to help connect 100,000 “low opportunity youth” to computer programming education programs.
Facebook intern class of 2013
Facebook also provides unconscious bias training to employees to help them nullify racism and sexism they may be expressing without knowing it. It also has an inclusive benefits program that aids employees across the sexual preference spectrum, and Employee Resource Groups that help support employees from different ethnic backgrounds, the LGBTQ community, and military veterans.
Women have long been known to be underrepresented in tech, but the real issue these reports highlight is that non-white, non-asian people are widely absent from the industry. Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and LinkedIn are all 89% to 91% white and asian.
Blaming these companies isn’t the answer, though. While hiring practices could certainly improve, they’re dealing with systemic inequality. Women and non-asian minorities are not getting the same encouragement in science, technology, engineering, and math that could prepare them for jobs at the tech giants. Without this education early, they aren’t enrolling in computer science programs at top universities like Stanford, Harvard, and MIT where the big tech companies recruit.