Google recently disclosed the details of its employees' diversity. The company workforce is 70 percent male and 30 percent female; 61 percent are white, 30 percent Asian, three percent Hispanic and two percent black.
On May 15, Google announced that it would publish its workforce diversity data after accusations stated that the company did not hire enough minorities and women. Activists gathered outside the company's headquarters rallying about diversity and labor problems. To end the issue, Google decided to release its workforce data.
Laszlo Bock, senior vice president of Google's People Operations, fulfilled the company's promise on Wednesday.
"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," Laszlo wrote in a blog post.
The company also explained why it favored whites and males during recruitment, presenting statistics to defend its statement. Laszlo mentioned that only 18 percent of the female population chooses computer science degrees during college.
Laszlo also talked about Google's investment on computer science education by offering scholarships to women and minorities. The company invested $40 million for these grants since 2010.
Rev. Jesse Jackson, who led one of the protests, was happy with Google's diversity disclosure. He hoped that other technology companies would follow through, the Washington Post reported.
Marilyn Nagel, the former chief diversity officer at Cisco, believed that Google's decision was a positive step in revealing its office environment which is vital information for job seekers.
"When people are looking for the next opportunity, they want to know what the environment is like. Are there women in engineering, are there women in leadership?" Nagel told Mercury News.
