- Mega-cap tech companies began publishing annual diversity reports in 2014. But few have made much ground, especially in hiring Black employees.
- Facebook, for example, has gone from a workforce that’s 3% Black to 3.8% in the past six years. Others also are in the low single digits.
- This week, tech CEOs pledged to do better and committed millions in grants. But critics say it “rings hollow” until it shows up in the data.
Prominent tech companies have made little progress in their stated goal of hiring more minorities.
Six years after their first diversity reports, Alphabet, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter have seen low single-digit increases in their percentage of Black employees, according to a CNBC analysis of the annual disclosures. Amazon shows a higher increase, but those numbers include warehouse and delivery workers.
“Every year they put out the same diversity report, check the box, then send out the same report the next year,” said Freada Kapor Klein, founding partner at Kapor Capital. “We’re at a crucial crossroads — I don’t think what tech companies have done to date is anywhere near enough.”
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