Intel has released its latest diversity report for 2016 and, based on its current employment numbers, little has changed in the two years it has been charting its progress, despite an increase in funding.
The latest Intel diversity report would appear to follow the trend of similar reports from many companies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, with an increase in the number of women and minorities in employment, but not as big an increase as would have been hoped.
This is despite the company’s figures showing that, since December 2014, the percentage of staff being hired from diverse backgrounds – including women and ethnic minorities – has increased by 11.5pc.
At the beginning of 2015, Intel announced that it was taking the obvious lack of diversity within the tech sector seriously. with a new $300m fund, with the company’s CEO, Brian Krzanich, describing it as a “bold statement”.
However, its overall representation of women among its US staff has increased by only 0.6pc in the past year, while the number of women in its newest recruits has actually fallen by 0.1pc on 2015.
The biggest percentage rise among women employees within Intel has been among its senior staff, with a rise of 1.7pc.
Retention proving difficult
Better results have been found among what the company calls underrepresented minorities (URM) as, since December 2014, the number of URM staff hired has increased by 4.1pc.
Yet in a similar trend to the number of women hired, URM recruitment among graduates and younger people has fallen by 0.4pc on last year.
Also, the figure for its overall URM representation has fallen by 0.1pc on last year, but has returned to the same level as December 2014.
When breaking down what URMs are being hired by Intel, it appears that, despite greater numbers of staff being hired from the Hispanic community – growing from 7.4pc of hires to 8.1pc – the percentage of Hispanic people working in the company has dropped by 0.4pc on 2015.
While it is certainly not easy to turn around years of company culture, Intel has revealed that there is now 99pc pay equity for URMs, while in 2015, the company said that it had achieved pay equity between men and women.
Intel at trade fair image via Adriano Castelli/Shutterstock
