Apple's Diversity Numbers: 70% Male, 55% White

An anonymous reader writes: Apple has released a diversity report on the genders and races of its employees. As is common in the tech industry, the majority of Apple's workforce is male — only three out of 10 employees around the globe are female. Broken down, males compose 65 percent of non-tech workers, 80 percent of tech workers, and 72 percent of Apple's leadership.

According to CEO Tim Cook, he's unhappy with Apple's diversity numbers and says Apple is working to improve them: "Apple is committed to transparency, which is why we are publishing statistics about the race and gender makeup of our company. 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."

Comments

Stupid

[Scareduck]

Wow, so we have quotas for Apple employees.

How about if we have quotas for awesome products?

Re:Stupid

[kbrannen]

Gotta agree that's stupid. First, you can only hire people that are available with the skills you're looking for. So if you don't have "diverse applicants", you'll never get "higher numbers".

Second, I hope he doesn't mean it, but it sounds like Cook want to be more diverse to look more politically correct. If I were a stock holder, I'd be upset. I wouldn't want him be "diverse" so he can look good; I'd want him to hire the best qualified people in a completely "blind" way. If that means 90% are male, or 80% white, or 85% female, or whatever the numbers work out to be because those were the best people to get the job done, then so be it. If the PC-crowd doesn't like it, then they need to encourage more minorities to get the required education and get qualified.

Re:Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

If the PC-crowd doesn't like it, then they need to encourage more minorities to get the required education and get qualified.

Kudos for saying what needed to be said.

It's time that bullshit like hiring quotas based on sex, race, etc. are dumped for the
wasteful idiotic bullshit they are.

There is ONE thing that matters, and that is : who does the best work. If you don't think
this is true, ask yourself whether you'd rather have a semi-competent pilot flying your airliner
because the airline was forced to accept hiring quotas, or whether you'd rather have the
very best pilot available controlling the airliner on which you are a passenger.

.

Re:Stupid

[Noah Haders]

it's clear that for a company of apple's wealth and reach, the solution isn't to hire diverse applicants, but to produce diverse applicants - invest in education opportunities, scholarships, other programs to bolster the pool of people.

Re:Stupid

[Darinbob]

This could fix things. However the people who refuse to acknowledge that the problem even exists won't be the ones to implement the fix and will probably claim it's a waste of effort, or that it's quotas in the schools.

Re:Stupid

[electrosoccertux]

If I were a stock holder, I'd be upset. I wouldn't want him be "diverse" so he can look good; I'd want him to hire the best qualified people in a completely "blind" way. If that means 90% are male, or 80% white, or 85% female, or whatever the numbers work out to be because those were the best people to get the job done, then so be it.

until you catch negative PR blitz that feminists picket and blacks boycott, which the media loves to pick up because You're Apple

Re:Stupid

[Maxo-Texas]

In my average IT class, we started with 20% females and finished with about 5% females.

I.e. they dropped at a higher rate. Most were not obsessed with computers enough to excel.

That creates a challenging pool to hire from.

Perhaps if IT people were not expected to be as obsessed and asocial as they are, it wouldn't happen.

There were zero IT parties in 4 years of collage. Heck my DND club had at least a couple parties a year.

Re:Stupid

[lisaparratt]

Or, another way of looking at it: they met their future colleagues, and bailed while the gettin' was good.

Re: Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

RACIST SEXIST NEANDERTHAL PIG! How dare you, breathe the same air as we Smart and Sophisticated (SS) people! When Hillary becomes President, we'll send you to totenkamp with your white trash buddy Bubba!

Re:Stupid

[prowler1]

I subscribe to the "Hire the best person for the position" methodology.

I manage a SysAdmin team and I will admit that 100% of my team is male but that might have something to do with the fact that 100% of the job applications I have received over the years have only been male. Other than that, 70% of my team is made up of what many of these PC groups like to call 'minorities'. My percentage comes from the simple fact that they were the best person for the job. Race, gender etc should not be part of the selection criteria and if it is, it only increases the chance it will hurt the company/organisation since you are passing by the right employee for a philosophy that dare I suggest is a form of discrimination in and of itself.

Re:Stupid

[mlk]

I come from the same camp, hire the best person for the role. Definitely.

But best is not just "technically best" but also "team fit best" and "not a dick" and "can communicate with the team" and various other little things. What this can mean is that the team unconsciously equates "best team fit" as "same as the rest of the team". The management should step in if this happens and look at ways to fixing what is a problem and reports like the one performed by Mr Apple is one quick way to measure if this is happening.

Re:Stupid

[Dutch Gun]

Men in teaching positions (as of 2011, from US Bureau of Labor statistics):

Kindergarten teachers: 2.3%
Grade school teachers: 18.3%
Secondary school teachers: 42.0%

Is this a problem? Personally, I don't think so. It just means that more women are interested in teaching younger children, and the men who are there are because they want to be. I doubt there's some grand conspiracy to prevent men from becoming kindergarten teachers. Just like there's no conspiracy to keep women out of tech jobs.

I think the biggest danger is that the minority may tend to feel marginalized, or feel unfortable because they stand out among their peers. In IT I can imagine it may get uncomfortable for women there, especially since that crowd is not especially known for being socially adept to begin with. I've met a number of prickly personalities myself, and if directed toward women, could be viewed as sexism, when it may just be an asshole acting true to his nature.

Still, there's undoubtedly some cases of real sexism as well, and that needs to be stomped hard when it comes to light. But institutional racism or sexism? I certainly haven't seen it, but admittedly I'm apparently in the "favored" columns for the IT field.

Re:Stupid

[IamTheRealMike]

That's not "getting ignored". What did she expect? That she'd show up and immediately have people begging to work with her, just because she was blonde?

If you're a dude and you turn up to a CS class, then you make an effort to initiate conversations if you want to work with people, or make friends. You don't just sit around looking pretty. That's a basic social norm and everyone does it.

My own experience of this is that there's a huge work/expectations gap. It's not just CS that suffers low female enrollment. It's any subject that involves lots of maths and hard work. My own CS class had zero female students in it right from the start - that's rare, but obviously the women weren't deciding not to study it because they got harassed in class. I had plenty of female friends at university and one of them studied maths, one of them studied physics, and the rest all did subjects like history, archaeology or English. I was kind of blown away by how little work these subjects entailed compared to my own.

Re:Stupid

[thegarbz]

Second, I hope he doesn't mean it, but it sounds like Cook want to be more diverse to look more politically correct.

No of course not. ... it's not just Cook doing it.

Diversity and inclusion is the latest buzzwords from all government and all companies. I was actually pressured by HR to consider hiring a lesser candidate who was Asian and female because she ticked 2 of the 3 diversity boxes. I asked them if next time we should just skip the entire interviewing / vetting process and flat out send out a questionnaire asking Gender, Race, LGBT, and then hiring based on the the results. (that didn't go down well and somehow *I* was the one who needed to go to an anti-discrimination course).

Right now in the corporate west the white straight male is the most discriminated against majority. In some companies it actually makes a big difference.

Re:Stupid

[serviscope_minor]

Fouled up link. Here's the proper one:

http://curt-rice.com/2012/F04/...

Re:Stupid

[GuB-42]

This study is interesting as it doesn't show that affirmative action itself has a positive effect. The simple knowledge that affirmative action is in place is sufficient, like some kind of placebo effect.

The idea is : women can win if they try but they don't try unless we tell them they have an unfair and in many cases unnecessary advantage.

Re:Stupid

[BitZtream]

You show experimental proof, done by an experiment intent on proving what it did.

Experiments and the real world are two entirely different things, but hey, don't let your agenda crowd your vision or anything. And we're going to ignore the selection bias as well.

Re:Stupid

[BitZtream]

The results of that 'study' are subjective and the study was biased from the start to show results that favor affirmative action.

Your study is bunk. It starts off by finding qualified individuals, then claims because it puts a diverse group in competition that its emulating affirmative action, which is entirely not the case.

Yes, I read the link.

Re:Stupid

[Lumpy]

Problem is you are considered RACIST for suggesting they get a better education and not follow the ghetto culture.

Honestly today you can learn ANYTHING on your own with the internet, yet ask any inner city youth, they are discouraged from learning because it's considered "acting white"

Their own brand of racisim keeps them down.

Re:Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this may be a good point here. I've known a lot of women in my life, and the "super-gorgeous blond" woman, if that's true, is probably used to guys falling over themselves to talk to her. Well, in the CS crowd, we weren't jocks, and lets be honest, we're not the most attractive fellows. Most of us have probably been rejected, and at least in my personal case, quite cruely on several occasions. I'm going to be very hesitant to go talk to this "super-gorgeous blond" simply because I know nothing about her, but people similar (looking, yes superficial, but it's the first indicator I have to go off of) to her have been very mean to me in the past.

Did she ask, did she present herself as being friendly. We're not typically assholes, but you do tend to have to make an effort to get to know us.

Re: Stupid

[samkass]

If there were quotas, the ratios wouldn't look like this. My take was that Cook said what he did because he has a firm belief that there are more minorities who can do awesome work for Apple but for whatever reason (ie the bigotry displayed on this thread) are being dissuaded from the company or even the industry. And that Apple wants to take advantage of that.

Re:Stupid

[QuesarVII]

the kind of person who thinks there is not any inequality in access to education to begin with

There is definitely inequality in the system, but it goes both ways. As a white male born to middle income parents, I was not eligble for the vast majority of scholarships I seeked. Despite having good grades in honors/AP classes and getting a very high SAT score, I got squat.

Why? It's because so many of the scholarships were specialized to various minority groups and to females. Things like this are why I personally have a problem with education programs targetting specific groups. Equality means equality, or at least it should.

Re:Stupid

[Livius]

Very skewed statistics are a sign that your process may not be as "blind" a you think it is, which is *different* kind of racism/sexism/etc/ but a problem nonetheless.

Of course, "70% male", "55% white", given the actual statistics for, say, graduates in IT programs, suggests they've already been engaging in politically-correct reverse discrimination.

Re:Stupid

[AthanasiusKircher]

Before I respond, let me be clear: I'm NOT arguing that quotas are the best way to fix this. Nor do I necessarily think Apple even has a "problem" here -- as others have noted, hiring pools in tech jobs tend to contain a lot of men, and white people are in fact the majority of people in the U.S.

However...

There is ONE thing that matters, and that is : who does the best work.

While I agree with you to some extent, the reality is that for most of history, that has NOT been the "one thing that matters." Getting a job was not just about whether you could do the best work, but whether you "looked like" other people at the company (maybe same race, sex, whatever), whether you went to the same school that the hiring manager did, whether your dad played golf with somebody who had some "pull" in the company, etc. And because of those latter things, even people who aren't really racist per se end up hiring people who are "more like them," because the college they went to also was skewed more white than most and the golf course is almost all for male white people, etc.

I'm NOT defending quotas here or saying they are a good solution to these problems. But the reality is that "who does the best work" is often only one of many criteria that goes into screening candidates or selecting someone to hire. And even though those mechanisms may not necessarily be overtly unfair regarding race or gender (though they may be unfair in other ways), they end up reproducing a result that is balanced toward maintaining the status quo.

And that also doesn't take into account the reality that there are in fact huge numbers of actual racist and sexist people who still live and work in the U.S. It's not polite to talk about it anymore, but it doesn't mean the attitudes aren't still around -- and just because one guy on the hiring committee doesn't explicitly say, "Let's move on from these three candidates because they're black" doesn't necessarily mean he isn't harboring prejudice.

So, I think it's important to recognize that "who does the best work" is actually NOT the only (or even primary) criterion for who ultimately gets hired in many positions. Some companies may actually succeed in doing that, and I applaud them. But there are often a lot of other subjective factors at play, and some of those may have racist or sexist effects (either intentional or unintentional).

Re:Stupid

[Ozymandias_KoK]

Seeked?

Re:Stupid

[liquid_schwartz]

Groups promoting the values of "tolerance" or "equality" always have an agenda, and that agenda is highly intolerant of those who disagree and is typically trying to achieve equality at the expense of other groups. I trust them as much as government groups promoting "security" and "safety".

Re:Stupid

[SecurityTheatre]

1) This study assumed an equal pool of men and women (it breaks, badly, if there is an unequal pool)
2) This study assumed or selected men and women who are very closely matched in terms of problem solving skill
3) This study simply concluded that affirmative action does not impact "the ability of the group to cooperate".

I hire for technical computer-related positions. I advertise in all the standard places, ranging from craigslist to the variety of job boards, as well as on our website. I will interview EVERY SINGLE woman who sends me a resume with even the most remote bit of experience. To contrast, I only interview about 5% of men who do.

I have hired EVERY SINGLE women who has come through the door for an interview. EVERY SINGLE ONE. (That is 3 people in the last 2 years)

I hire about 2% of men who apply. My standards for the men we hire are EXTREMELY strict.

I still hire over 80% men.

I'm not sure what kind of affirmative action would be required to rectify this, but it certainly isn't up to my HR department to go out and train more women, or convince them to look for jobs.

My boss is female. Our CEO is an immigrant who is decidedly not white. But we end up with a bunch of white guys applying for positions. That's just the nature of it and Apple, being ONLY 55% white and 60% male has done something remarkable with their diversity... In my experience, that level of diversity is unheard of...

Re:Stupid

[wired_parrot]

Problem is you are considered RACIST for suggesting they get a better education and not follow the ghetto culture.

It is racist to apply broad stereotypes to a class of people. The black people applying for those Apple jobs are college graduates, most likely coming from a middle-class background. The average black applicant has as much in common with the "inner-city ghetto culture", as you call it, as the average white applicant has in common with "white trailer-park trash".

Re:Stupid

[Archangel Michael]

Here is the business model sense:

IF (big) Minorities and women are given preferential treatment (they sometimes are) it would behoove a business to hire them over more qualified candidates, just to gain the preferential treatment available ... to the point where the under qualified woman/minority advantage disappears.

FURTHER, if women/minorities have salaries at a significantly lower percentage than white male counterparts, all other things being equal, would be an advantage to firms hiring them. The problem isn't with the marketplace, it is the invisible costs associated with Women and Minorities. From "Sexual harassment" to "Racism" lawsuits and other claims that cost businesses real money.

While I'm not making any negative judgements on the merits of any particular claims or causes, they just exist and they cost money. Personally, I think many sexual harassment lawsuits and claims of racism are legitimate, but perhaps more so, are the ones that are in the "grey" area or completely bogus that it isn't worth the time, effort or even the benefits of the lower wages to the business.

The net result is these fringe and bogus claims are hurting women and minorities more than they are helping them. When people use their sex or race or other "protected class status" as a weapon in business it hurts everyone. And that is the real sad part of it all.

Re:Stupid

[schlachter]

Anyone else think that 55% white is an incredibly low number for a top tier tech company and not high, as everyone seems to indicate? I would have thought the numbers would like more like 60% white, 30% asian, 10% everything else.

Re:Stupid

[Atzanteol]

What does equality mean to you? Equal access? Equal opportunity? Equal opportunity but only when it doesn't affect you personally?

What would you say if you entered a race that was touted as being fair. Yet participants of one "class" were put much further along the course than you for no better reason than chance (lets say they had even numbers on their shirts and you had odd). Would you consider that to be "equal" or "fair?"

Those scholarships that were specialized to minority groups and females had no affect on you. They were extra opportunities to those groups not removing opportunities from you. They are *in addition* to the other scholarships out there. The fact that you couldn't get one of those other scholarships is your own problem and it's shameful that you would blame minorities who struggle much more than you for something that wasn't their fault.

Re:Stupid

[Maxo-Texas]

Interesting, since I was good friends with many of them and the universal reason they said they quit was it was too damn hard. Most went to a business computer degree.

Not a single one of them said they had problems with the guys or the teachers.

At least a fifth of the males dropped too.

I'm not discounting sexual harassment as being a factor. But you know as well as I do that it's not 100% of the problem. Computer science- like engineering is very hard and usually has at least three "weedout" courses with high homework loads and high failure rates.

You have to be obsessed to get thru it. If you don't love computers- you wisely choose another degree.

Even today- the females at my last job programmed all day and then went home and were done. Most the guys too. But there was a subset of guys who stopped programming- went home- and then kept programming. If not on company stuff- then on their own stuff. I've met one female like that. And she was an awesome programmer.

Again- sexual harassment happens.
But it's a very hard degree. You have to love it and work on it when you are not required to work on it if you want to excel.

 

Re:Stupid

[aardvarkjoe]

Wow. So, we're modding up straight up racists now?

There is no evidence of racism in the post you replied to. It is obvious that he objects to a particular culture, not a particular race.

Re:Stupid

[Maxo-Texas]

You really misread my post. I didn't even hint that I "despise asocial persons." I was one myself for ever. I'm a strong introvert and found social situations uncomfortable.

But my company sent me to Dale Carnegie classes and it changed my life. If nothing else, I have a "script" to follow in social situations which prevent me or others from being awkward and uncomfortable.

And I learned people make decisions emotionally first- then they weight the facts to fit their emotional decision.

If someone likes you, they weight facts in your favor.

Which means they bend procedures for you, give you a little slack on your deadline, understand your reasons for being late instead of discounting them.
So then I finally understood the value of socializing.

Re:Stupid

[Actually, I do RTFA]

who does the best work. If you don't think this is true, ask yourself whether you'd rather have a semi-competent pilot flying your airliner because the airline was forced to accept hiring quotas, or whether you'd rather have the very best pilot available controlling the airliner on which you are a passenger.

Competent is fine by me. I don't care if they are Charles Lindburgh reincarnated or just some guy who can keep it, metaphorically, between the lines. In fact, I'd rather the pilot was cheaper and the savings passed on to me. (Which also seems to be what the airlines have done)

Now, unqualified/incompetent is a different matter. But, not the best does not imply unqualified.

Re:Stupid

[SecurityTheatre]

The "study" makes this claim:

Given an equal number of candidates of each gender, who are all roughly similar qualifications, when using a strictly competitive process men may be favored, but if women are given a slight inherent advantage and/or competition is not emphasized, it does not appear harm group cooperation in subsequent testing.

Be careful not to go too much further than this with the data given. There is absolutely no performance metric for the outcome, there is no thought of unequal pools of applicants, there is no reference to the relative levels of qualifications. There is no data to support really much of anything, except that "if women are given favor in assessments of an equal-input application process, it doesn't necessarily harm cooperative nature of the resulting team".

The real trick is that in fields like very specialized areas of IT, the applicant pool is 90-95% men (in my last round of hiring. I have 117 resumes, 116 male, 1 female). It really doesn't matter what kind of selection criteria I use, up to and including "hire all women with a pulse", I will still end up with an unequal gender balance.

What kind of changes to the 'competitive process' do you propose?

Re:That can't be right!

[Anonymous Coward]

You're absolutely right.

You may be stupid.

Next, Samsung

[Spy Handler]

we demand that Samsung engineering department show us their diversity porfolio!

Signed,

NAACP, N.O.W., G.L.O.W.

Re:Next, Samsung

[93 Escort Wagon]

we demand that Samsung engineering department show us their diversity porfolio!

Samsung is proud to report their diversity numbers:

45% Kim
38% Lee
7% Park
6% Choi
4% Other

Samsung strongly believes in promoting a diverse workforce. We currently have a company-wide mandate to raise our Park percentage to 11% by 2018.

Remediating American's Victimization of Indians

[Baldrson]

Its good to see Apple recognizes America's history of victimizing Indians requires remediation by affirmative action favoring the hiring of Indians.

Re:Remediating American's Victimization of Indians

[Noah Haders]

a lot of comments on this thread are stupid and bigoted, but this one is +1 funny. Jonathan stewart should use this. as a side note, I had a licensing problem with my MS Office (replaced hard drive, then needed to revalidate the programs). Holding my nose, I called the M$ 1-800 number. The experience was fantastic. after a single-level phone tree, the phone was answered on the second ring by a very nice man in india who answered all my questions. it turned out i had a technical problem rather than a licensing problem, so he connected me with another very nice indian man who solved my problem within 5 minutes. It was actually pretty cool.

It's easy to fix

[msobkow]

Just break down all the employees into the smallest groups possible. Instead of "White" or "African", break it down to German, Swiss, Dutch, South African, Tanzanian, and so on. With everything down to a few dozen members per group, you'll have a nice flat diversity line. :P

Jobs to Cook: DFIU

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> CEO Tim Cook, he's unhappy with Apple's diversity numbers and says Apple is working to improve them

(Voice of Steve Jobs): Tim. Boobie. The secret of Apple is 50% product and 50% marketing, with minimal bullshit. Please don't fuck it up.

>> we're committed to being as innovative in advancing diversity as we are in developing our products.

(Voice of Steve Jobs): Ah shit. You fucked it up.

Re:Jobs to Cook: DFIU

[Yoda222]

This goes in the 50% of marketing. If you have a diversity policy, it's a diversity policy. If you communicate over your diversity policy, it's PR.

Why the backlash?

[The Evil Atheist]

How does this affect anyone here who is commenting negatively about this? Why are people taking it as a personal attack on their personal politics?

Quick rule of thumb

[nrasch]

I always apply a quick rule of thumb to these types of items: Replace the word diversity/female/minority/whatever with the words "single white Christian male." Then read the sentence again. Does it offend and/or sound bigoted? Would it make Al Sharpton snort milk out of his nose if he read it whilst eating breakfast cereal? If not great; probably a good idea. If so, then it's just as bad/racist/slanted as if the words really were replaced with "single white Christian male."

Ex: Single white Christian male's have a higher cancer rate in lower income communities. (Yep, no problem here.)

Ex: Apple needs to hire more single white Christian males. (Derp! Issues... Al's nose hurts now...)

Re:Quick rule of thumb

[Anonymous Coward]

"Apple's single white Christian male numbers: 70% male, 55% white"

I think your rule needs some work.

Of course, 55% white is significantly lower than the general population. Furthermore, Apple is one of the most gay-friendly companies in the world, making the "Christian" part dubious at best.

Constantly surprised at the reactions

[unimacs]

How often does a company REALLY hire the best possible person for the position? I'd say the chances are pretty slim. They may very well hire somebody who ends up being successful, but that's not the same as the best.

Usually the way it works is that the person that gets hired is the one that the hiring manager likes the most out of the people they've interviewed. The people that get interviewed are the ones that HR/hiring manager liked out of the pool of people that applied.

There may have been highly qualified people that were eliminated at any step. I've seen managers throw out resumes because the name wasn't "American sounding". That's a more blatant case. Some of the more subtle cases occur because there is a tendency to hire people like yourself.

For example, I was nearly turned down for a position because they wanted someone with a masters degree. Why? Because the people running the business unit and doing the hiring had MBAs, not because anything about the job required a masters.

I would venture that in many cases where a white male is hired into a technical position, there are equally or better qualified non-whites out there some place. To find them, you may have to look in different places, - cast a wider net. My point is that making an effort to have a more diverse workforce DOES NOT mean you have to settle for less qualified people.

On the other hand, there is a definite shortage of women CS and engineering grads. There are lots of complex reasons for this. But it's worse than it used to be, - which means it can be better than it is now. Companies like Apple are big enough to help make that happen, but not overnight.

Re:Constantly surprised at the reactions

[silfen]

I would venture that in many cases where a white male is hired into a technical position, there are equally or better qualified non-whites out there some place.

There are many highly qualified non-whites, and they are getting hired. That's why whites are underrepresented in these statistics.

To find them, you may have to look in different places, - cast a wider net. My point is that making an effort to have a more diverse workforce DOES NOT mean you have to settle for less qualified people.

You're starting from the wrong assumption, namely that there is a shortage of jobs. But there is a shortage of qualified applicants. My company (and others as well) don't go out and hire the best candidate for a job, we hire every candidate that meets our requirements, regardless of race. I expect Apple, Facebook, and Google are doing the same. That's why our and their workforce is simply representative of the applicant pool. In order to change the demographics of their workforce, they'd have to reject qualified applicants solely based on race.

55% White

[Anonymous Coward]

In a nation who's population is approximately 80% White...

If every company in the united states was only 55% white employees or less, then 25% of the countries population would be unemployed.

Re:55% White

[maliqua]

Actually if you read the article or even looked at the pictures on the report you'd see that the racial numbers are based on US employees and the gender numbers are based on the world employees

Re:umm

[righteousness]

According to gay crowds, they were gay since birth, meaning that as soon as they were born, they were sexually attracted to other babies of the same sex.

Re:I'm an Apple, I am male

[Opportunist]

Say what you want, but Apple is the only company I know where all workers lost their Jobs and could still go to work the next day!

Re:Why 'diversity'?

[maliqua]

everyone doesn't.

It's just the new acceptable racism. It's the same as the old kinds of racism, socially accepted at the time.

I guess we just wait for history to decide if they're right or we're right.

Re:How about some real number?

[0123456]

Yawn.

If women really made less than men for doing the same job, why would any company ever hire men?

Oh, OK, the companies are EVIL, but they're also really stupid, right?

Or don't be...

[popo]

What's the percentage of white male computer-science and technical graduates?

To do anything but hire according to that percentage would be an act of sexism or racism.

Re:Or don't be...

[jrumney]

Apple doesn't just hire computer science and technical graduates.

Re:Or don't be...

[Imrik]

How about, what's the percentage of qualified job applicants?

Re:Or don't be...

[Austerity Empowers]

Ignoring the droves of marketing, finance, accounting, HR, operations, customer support and sales a company like Apple would require, all of which require degreed and (theoretically) non-degreed workers in fields that are not quite the white/asian sausage fest that engineering is.

Usually engineering is the smallest part of any company. While I do not agree with the cause of diversity for diversity's sake, nor hiring lesser qualified individuals based on their genitalia or ethnic background, nor hiding behind diversity when attempting to "globalize" a workforce with the intent of reducing wages, it is possible that they can diversify using the existing labor pool without requiring engineering "unobtanium".

equality by key figures

[Tom]

When you stop using key figures as a guidance to reaching your goal and use them as goals in themselves, you've got a problem.

Frankly speaking, I don't give a fuck if a company is 5% white, 50% white or 99% white. While these numbers may be indicators of an underlying problem, they are just that - indicators. Just like running a company by consulting-think usually results in a bancrupt company, you have to go deeper than some numbers, and you should never make those numbers your actual goals. Many companies have been run into the ground by idiots who thought 4% profit margin is not enough and this consultant or that business insider says they need 5% and if it ruins the company to get that extra 1% then so be it...

What should matter is if there's any problem for anyone getting hired or promoted in Apple (or any other company) because of gender, skin colour or whatever else you want. Statistical numbers can give you a hint on where you might want to check, but in themselves, they are meaningless. They're just statistics.

Diversity of thought, not physical characteristics

[myid]

Discrimination on the basis of physical characteristics like race or gender is unfair.

Apple should try for a different kind of diversity - diversity of thought.

Some people are good at thinking up and "seeing" new ideas. Others are good at implementing those ideas efficiently. Others are super-thorough at reviewing code and testing.

Some people design UX with the user in mind. Others write code that's easy to maintain, written with programmers in mind.

Some people are more willing to take chances than other people are. Tim Cook can listen both of them, and gets both points of view.

Especially for a company that needs to innovate, Apple's hiring policy should be to get diversity in ways of thinking.

That's a problem we have

[Sycraft-fu]

I do IT work at a state university. As you'd expect with government institutions, we are really big on the EEOC rules and such. However, we can't force people to apply and for IT stuff, you get mostly men. Last round, it was all men. I don't mean we chose to interview all men, I mean no women applied, or if they did apply, HR filtered them out (HR does a basic "resume vs qualifications" check). Our IT group (we are only one of many IT groups on campus, there are women in other groups) is all male, at present. We had a female webmaster, however her fiance got a job in New York, so they moved there and of course she quit.

What, precisely, are we supposed to do to be more diverse? There are just not many women who seem to have the skills and wish to apply. We can't go and force people to apply, nor can we (legally or practically) say we'll waive the requirements for the job if you are a woman.

You can't hire those that don't apply.

So in terms of all this fluff up over Silicon Valley and diversity, I'd say how does their workforce numbers compare to their applicants? If in general it is the same, meaning say 30% of applicants are female and 30% of employees are female, 9% of applicants are black and 8% of employees are black, well then there probably isn't any discrimination going on. The fact that the numbers do not reflect demographics doesn't mean any discrimination on their part if they are simply not getting the applicants.

Also with regards to race, I'm not seeing why the 55% white number is problematic. According to Wikipedia, 72% of the US is white. If you count being hispanic as not being white (remember hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race) then the number is 64%. So per overall breakdown of the population, white people would be underrepresented in Apple by a fair bit.

That is also something I think people forget: The US does not have an even balance of all groups. Male/female has about a 50/50 split, but racial/ethnic groups are not nearly so even. It is still a nation dominated by fair skinned people of European ancestry, aka "white". The amount varies by state, of course, but it is quite a consistent majority.

Re:That's a problem we have

[Bing Tsher E]

The guy working on his degree probably wouldn't have stayed in the position long enough. Remember, the people doing the hiring likely wanted somebody who would stick around after learning what was expected of him. The mediocre guy probably fit the bill best because of his mediocrity.

Most jobs are easy enough that the 'best qualified' candidate doesn't need to be hired. Other considerations are important as well.

Re: That's a problem we have

[blue9steel]

Ah, so you're selecting for candidates with financially well off parents, check.

Re:That's a problem we have

[SecurityTheatre]

I'm not the OP, but I wanted to point out a few things.

Unpaid internships are illegal where I live. Also, IT workers can't be "trained from nothing" in a year.

But I've had "entry level" job postings up for several months, requiring nothing but a basic background in computers. You should know what TCP is and how IP packets are routed, at a high level. All other experience is entirely optional.

I have 116 male resumes and 1 female.

70 of the males have extensive experience in the field. 30 are extremely qualified.

What exactly compels me to throw away 116 of the resumes, hire that single poorly qualified female sight-unseen and then spend a year training her, only to have a candidate that is paid the same and still has way less experience than half of my original applicants did?

I don't think you have ANY idea how unequal the experience level is in the field. It's wild.

And for your information, I did hire a woman in our last round. She was very qualified and we're happy to have her. She is one of the higher paid techs, because she's damn good at her job.

But I won't hire some random person with no qualifications, while tossing out 30 qualified applicants, simply because of their gender. That's just a silly business decision.

Also, according to my reading of anti-discrimination laws, I simply CANNOT hire someone unqualified, based solely on their gender. That's illegal. The law is very clear that I cannot "discriminate based on gender", and I could potentially have 30 qualified applicants filing a lawsuit if I trash their applications and hire a completely untrained person instead, based solely on their gender.

Just imagine if it were the opposite and I trashed 30 qualified female applications so that I could hire the sole, unqualified, male? Shitstorm....

Re: Now it's unfair....

[cmdr_tofu]

It's called reverse racism, and it is bigotry. It is damaging, and it should not be acceptable. However on a scale of damage, it's less damaging than regular racism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

  “The cry of the poor is is not always just, but if you don't listen to it, you will never know what justice is.”

  Howard Zinn

Re:not just hiring

[Lumpy]

"or the pay for their gender or ethnicity seems off compared to others." This is why the bullshit of "secret pay scales" exist. so management can pay the black guy less than the white guy or the woman less than the men.

I freely tell others what I get paid at work and I'll ask others what they get paid. It should not be a secret.

Re:Playing with the stereotypes

[stdarg]

So again, if companies know that women will earn 30% less over the course of their careers at the company... why would they hire men?