In an unusual move for a tech giant, Google today released data related to employee gender and ethnicity.
Unsurprisingly, there are more men (70%) than women working at Google. Caucasian employees (61%) also make up a majority of the company’s workforce in the U.S.
These are numbers that Google isn’t proud of.
“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,” the company wrote in a blog post.
The gender gap is even more pronounced for tech-related positions:
Here’s the breakdown for non-tech workers:
And for “leadership” employees:
Google took this opportunity to show how it is trying to improve the makeup of its employee base, highlighting its diverse employee support groups and efforts to expose computer science to both women and minority groups.
“But we’re the first to admit that Google is miles from where we want to be—and that being totally clear about the extent of the problem is a really important part of the solution,” the company notes.
Google’s decision to reveal this data comes as pressure mounts on tech companies to close the gender gap and diversify their workforce. Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. recently appeared at a Hewlett Packard board meeting and implored tech companies to place more emphasis on minority leadership.
With the exception of a few companies like Intel, few tech giants have released information like this — but perhaps Google will start a new trend. Reports show that more than 85 percent of engineers at tech companies are men, while only 18 percent of computer science graduates are female — a number that’s dropped from about 37 percent in 1984.
Related: Code.org founder on the real reason there aren’t more women in tech
