Facebook has released its annual diversity report which shows slightly improved figures, and includes LGBTQ data for the first time. The report also shows Facebook committing around $15 million to Code.org to encourage interest in computer science, and the company’s TechPrep resource hub is also being taken up to communities of color across the US.
Facebook revealed that 90% of its US-based employees are either white or Asian, which represents a 1% reduction from the diversity report released in 2015. 92% of senior leadership roles are now occupied by white or Asian employees, representing a 2% reduction since 2015. More women are now involved in senior leadership roles, at 27% as opposed to 23% last year. Technical jobs have seen a 1% reduction for men, with 83% of technical jobs currently secured by men.
Black and Hispanic employees remain at the same percentage, showing no change in terms of underrepresented diversity groups. These two groups represent 3% of senior leadership employees at Facebook, while 9% of new hires were black. 5% of new hires were Hispanic. 29% of new hires for senior leadership roles were women.
According to Mashable, Facebook’s global director of diversity Maxine Williams believes there is only so much hiring initiatives can accomplish. Ms. Williams expressed her pride at Facebook’s efforts to change things, and said that the company was heading in the right direction. But she also pointed out that several employees from minority backgrounds, and women were not getting the chances they deserved in the industry. She mentioned that this was due to lack of exposure to computer science at an early age.
Facecbook has tried to remedy this with initiatives such as Facebook University, which saw the company recruit and subsequently hire 170 underrepresented group students for analytics, engineering, and business internships. TechPrep is a website that teaches programming and computer science in both Spanish and English. The website has attracted over half a million unique visitors since its launch.
According to Ms. Williams, these initiatives aim to resolve the issue of lack of awareness or interest in computer science. 18% of undergraduate computer science degrees are held by women, while black and Hispanic graduates account for 10% of these degrees. Three out of four public high schools do not have a computer science course. In a lot of states, no women or black and Hispanic people took the Advanced Placement computer science exam.
Facebook uses the diverse slate approach, which requires managers to interview at least one minority candidate. That said, the problem is present on a national level. It can be argued that this is just owing to lack of interest by minorities in the technology sector. That said, the tech industry and Silicon Valley have both long been criticized for the remarkably skewed results they present concerning women and minorities. It is a fair argument that women and minorities who were simply not exposed to computer science and related fields will end up having less of a chance of breaking into the sector.
That said, it is important to make hiring decisions based on merit. Tech giants cannot simply hire under-qualified individuals to fill quotas. But they also have to ensure that underrepresented groups, including women, get the correct exposure so that more people from that group are able to secure jobs based on merit. Facebook and Google have started releasing diversity reports to help initiate a change. It will be a while before proper change is implemented.
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