Danielle Brown, Google's vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, has released the company's 2018 diversity report.
"The data in this report shows that despite significant effort, and some pockets of success, we need to do more to achieve our desired diversity and inclusion outcomes," Brown said in her opening statement.
Women are still less represented in Google’s workforce than men, the data and insights reports shows. For example, between 2014-2017 the representation of Black+ men increased 0.5 ppts (to 1.8%), whereas the representation of Black+ women increased 0.1 ppt (to 1.2%). Representation of Latinx+ men in Google’s workforce increased three times more than Latinx+ women (0.6 ppts compared to 0.2 ppts).
"Our gains in women’s representation have largely been driven by White and Asian women," Brown explained.
Representation of Asian+ women increased considerably to 12.5% of Google’s workforce, up from 10% overall in 2014 (+2.5 ppts). Yet this is lower than increases for Asian+ men who make up 25.7% of Google, up from 21.4% in 2014 (+4.3 ppts).
Among Google's leadership, White women make up 16.4% of leaders, up from 14.3% in 2014 (+2.1 ppts). This is followed by increases in Asian men and Asian women in leadership, which have grown to 20% and 7.3% respectively (+1.6 ppts and +1.2 ppts).
Overall, White men make up 52.4% of leadership down from 53.8% (-1.4 ppts) in 2017.
"We have made progress in our leadership ranks, by gender and ethnicity," Brown says. "Women hold 25.5% of Google’s leadership positions today. Over the last four years, the percentage of women in leadership globally has increased from 20.8% to 25.5% (+4.7 ppts),"
In 2017, leadership hires were 5.4% Black, and Black representation in leadership increased from 1.5% in 2017 to 2% in 2018. Latinx representation in Google’s leadership is 1.8% (up from 1.7%).
Over the same period, women hires in tech positions rose to 24.5% (+1 ppt), although overall hiring of women dropped from 31.4% to 31.2% (-0.2 ppts), according to Google's data and insights.
"Since 2014, women hires in tech have increased from 20.8% to 24.5% (+3.7 ppts), which shows that our focus on hiring more women into technical positions is having impact," Brown notes.
Overall Latinx hires increased to 4.2% (+0.4 ppts), while Latinx hires in non-Tech roles increased to 7.2% (+1.5 ppts).Black Googler hires (3.2% of all U.S. hires) remain above current representation (2.5% of all U.S. Googlers), and hires of Black Googlers in tech positions increased from 1.9% to 2.0% (+0.1 ppt).
Google's current workforce composition is 30.9 percent female and 69.1 percent male. Ethnic makeup breakdowns to 36.3 percent Asian, 2.5 percent black, 3.6 percent Latinx, 0.3 percent Native American, 4.2 percent mixed race, and 53.1 percent white.
"We are determined to change our workforce representation numbers," Brown says, "because they reflect the career prospects of real people: Googlers and future Googlers, students, communities, and families. Diversity is a business imperative because Google builds for everyone—and diverse teams produce better products and services. And it aligns with our mission: to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful," Brown added.
Women make up 30.9% of Google's global workforce, and men 69.1%.2 In terms of race and ethnicity (U.S. data only) 2.5% of Google’s workforce is Black; 3.6% is Hispanic/Latinx; 3 36.3% is Asian; 4.2% is multiracial (two or more races); 0.3% are Native American,4 Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander; and, 53.1% is White.
Representation for women, Black, and Latinx Googlers is similar to last year, increasing by only 0.1 percentage point (ppt) for each of these groups.