Apple’s diversity report also shows white male dominance

13 Aug 2014

Consumer tech giant Apple has revealed its own diversity report, and much like its Silicon Valley neighbours, shows bias towards white males in leadership and tech positions.

Apple published the report on its website, and has taken a different approach to other companies by presenting the data on a sidebar, favouring larger text and images of its employees and message from its CEO, Tim Cook.

In terms of its world gender breakdown, there are few differences with other companies, albeit on the slightly lower end of the diversity scale. Eighty per cent of Apple’s tech employees are men, while its leadership positions are slightly more diverse, with 72pc of management being made up of men.

However, its diversity in terms of race, in the US at least, has shown to be the most progressive in terms of hiring people from black and Hispanic backgrounds, particularly among its tech staff, with the breakdown showing 6pc and 7pc, respectively.

Meanwhile, Asian tech staff, which have shown in these diversity reports to be the second-highest source of staff, make up 23pc, while those who wished to not declare their race amounted to 8pc.

In his personal message, Cook, like all of the CEOs whose messages were attached to the reports, has said he hopes the company will improve on what he sees as a less than satisfactory finding.

“Let me say up front: As CEO, I’m not satisfied with the numbers on this page. They’re not new to us, and we’ve been working hard for quite some time to improve them. We are making progress, and we’re committed to being as innovative in advancing diversity as we are in developing our products.”

Colm Gorey
By Colm Gorey

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic. He joined in January 2014 and covered AI, IoT, science and anything that will get us to Mars quicker. When not trying to get his hands on the latest gaming release, he can be found lost in a sea of Wikipedia articles on obscure historic battles and countries that don't exist any more, or watching classic Simpsons episodes far too many times to count.

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