Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Twitter Follows Facebook And Google In Reporting Its Staff Is Dominated By White Men

The social network reports that 70% of its global employees are male.

Twitter's gender diversity data

Via Twitter: @2014

Twitter joined tech companies like Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and Yahoo today in disclosing its ethnic and gender diversity data. And like those companies, Twitter acknowledged it has "a lot of work to do."

Twitter reported in a blog post that 70% of its workforce is men and just 30% is women. The disparity is even worse in its executive ranks, where the breakdown is 79% men and 21% women. Twitter's workforce is also overwhelmingly white — 59% of its employees are white, while 29% are Asian and less than 5% are black, Hispanic or Latino.

"We are keenly aware that Twitter is part of an industry that is marked by dramatic imbalances in diversity — and we are no exception," Janet Van Huysse, Twitter's vice president of diversity and inclusion, wrote in the post. "By becoming more transparent with our employee data, open in dialogue throughout the company and rigorous in our recruiting, hiring and promotion practices, we are making diversity an important business issue for ourselves."

Silicon Valley's lack of diversity has become a major issue recently amid frequent reports of sexual harassment and discrimination at some of America's fastest-growing and wealthiest companies. The reports are intended to foster a broader discussion on how to increase diversity in tech, which is presently dominated by white and Asian men.

Google led tech companies in disclosing diversity data at the end of May; Facebook, LinkedIn and Yahoo were quick to follow. (Apple says it will soon provide similar information.) All of the companies reported a workforce of 61% men or more; LinkedIn had the most women in leadership roles at just 27%. At each of the companies, at least 89% of employees are white or Asian.