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Amazon Releases (Not Many) Details On Its Workforce Demographics

Posted by timothy on from the how-many-people-do-you-employ? dept.

theodp (442580) writes Late to the table on disclosing workforce demographics, Amazon posted a diversity report to its website on Halloween, revealing that its global work force is 63% male and 37% female, while in the U.S., its work force is 60% white, 15% black, 13% Asian and 9% Hispanic. More lacking in granular detail than the less-than-transparent diversity data provided by its tech peers, Rainbow PUSH said Amazon's numbers were not as good as they appeared, and criticized the company for a lack of candor. "Their general work force data released by Amazon seems intentionally deceptive, as the company did not include the race or gender breakout of their technical work force," PUSH said in a statement. "The broad assumption is that a high percentage of their black and Latino employees work in their warehouses." Following the lead of other tech companies, Diversity at Amazon suggests the e-tailer's undisclosed-but-presumed lack of tech diversity could be blamed on "female students and students of color [who] are opting out of technology and engineering" as early as middle school and high school. Taking a page from Google's playbook, Amazon pointed to its involvement with the Anita Borg Institute, Code.org, Girls Who Code, and the National Center for Women & Information Technology as ways the company's addressing tech diversity deficiencies.

15 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Rainbow PUSH said ... by fche · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That organization has embodied weaponized identity politics to such an extent that an article quoting them non-ironically deserves dismissal.

    1. Re:Rainbow PUSH said ... by HornWumpus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Never even address a false premise. It is not an companies responsibility to address the failures of particular minority communities to embrace technology education.

      Rainbow/push just wants a payoff to go away and leave Amazon alone (see also Toyota and a buttload of other companies). Listening to them just empowers a bunch of extortionists and shows minority youth wrong ways/attitudes regarding success. Why study calculus when public relations/political science is so much more lucrative.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    2. Re:Rainbow PUSH said ... by NotDrWho · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Any company looking to please an organization like that is wasting their time. They're basically just an extortion racket.

      --
      SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    3. Re:Rainbow PUSH said ... by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That organization has embodied weaponized identity politics to such an extent that an article quoting them non-ironically deserves dismissal.

      http://articles.philly.com/200...

      read that...
      Most civil rights leaders are good people. But Jessi Jackson and Al Sharpton are crooks. Sharpton should literally be in prison. Those 2 have done more to harm the black community than any other modern political leader.

    4. Re:Rainbow PUSH said ... by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, it's much easier to dismiss an article based on history than to engage with the actual arguments and numbers that are presented. /s

      If the mob showed up at your door and asked to see the bookkeeping for your business and then asked "Why not? What do you have to hide?" I think that the history of the mobs behavior towards other businesses would be quite relevant. And that's exactly what's happening here.

    5. Re:Rainbow PUSH said ... by tranquilidad · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Required by whom? Under-represented how?

      Do you measure representation based on the numbers of that minority in the community? If so, which community: city, county, state, nation, world? Or, do you measure representation based on the number of individuals that have entered the field?

      What measures do they take? If someone whose skin is black or brown is under-represented do you pay those candidates more because of the color of their skin? If Asians are over-represented do you pay them less to discourage their entry in the industry and get their numbers "back in line?"

      What makes race? If someone is born of multi-racial parents which race counts?

      The problem with demands such as these is they don't seek to solve any supposed problem other than enriching their own pockets through consultation fees. If you are measuring workplace diversity based on the skin color you observe when you look at your fellow work mates then you are, ultimately, practicing a form of racism yourself.

      Every proposed solution to this manufactured problem is in and of itself racist.

      Rainbow PUSH doesn't want to believe in, and it's in their best interest to discourage, individual accomplishment and responsibility. If they fail to divide along skin color then they fail to enrich themselves through extortion. If we allow their division to continue then we continue to promote the very mechanisms that create inequality.

    6. Re:Rainbow PUSH said ... by jzilla · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'd think that the black community could make their own choices on who their leaders are and don't don't need white folk telling them which of their leaders are effective. Especially when it's the lazy white press who keeps more effective (albeit less visually stimulating) leaders in the shadows.

      Neither Jessie Jackson or Al Sharpton have ever been elected or othrewise "choosen" by the black community. It is hard not to despise people who make their fortune on the backs of the people they claim to represent, like these two have.

    7. Re:Rainbow PUSH said ... by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I have to say that a lot of the race talk these days does appear to come from blacks...

      I'm white... I couldn't care less what color you are, you're a human being, just like me...

      Yet between the media and other "leaders" like Jesse Jackson, it is race this and race that. I'm tired of it.

      Those police rolled up on the black kids for a reason. Black kids commit more crimes than white kids do, look at the number of them in prison...

      That isn't your fault, but the culture of black people needs to change. I don't care for Barack Obama, not because he is black, but because I don't like his politics. I don't like Bill Clinton either. I would vote for Collin Powell in a heartbeat.

      Get the gansta crap cleaned up, get the crime and low income problems cleaned up, get your kid into education and technology, and the world is his oyster.

  2. Diversity bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What is the diversity deficiency really mean? Asians are overrepresented as a share of the general population, there seems to be underrepresention in whites. Why do Asians not count for the purposes of this diversity calculation?

    Let's be honest and admit you really want more blacks admitted at the expense of other groups. That's what the diversity these race baiters really want.

    1. Re:Diversity bullshit by crgrace · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Interment camps, not concentration camps. Also, interment wasn't done from a desire to oppress the Japanese, but out of fear of the Japanese Empire. So it's not so much that the Americans felt the Japanese inferior, but rather that they feared a full scale invasion of the west coast by the Japanese Empire.

      Not defending it, but it's still important to understand these things in context.

      Indeed, context is everything.

      We put American citizens of Japanese descent in concentration camps (a weasel word like "internment camp" doesn't change what it was).

      We put American citizens of German descent in charge of our armed forces (Eisenhower, for example. He was Pennsylvania Dutch, who are of German descent).

    2. Re:Diversity bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Interment camps, not concentration camps. Also, interment wasn't done from a desire to oppress the Japanese, but out of fear of the Japanese Empire. So it's not so much that the Americans felt the Japanese inferior, but rather that they feared a full scale invasion of the west coast by the Japanese Empire.

      Not defending it, but it's still important to understand these things in context.

      What's in a name? Here's George Takei (Sulu) who actually was in one of these camps: http://www.ted.com/talks/george_takei_why_i_love_a_country_that_once_betrayed_me

      That is the MOST positive light in which I've ever seen these portrayed and they still sound damned horrifying to me.

      As an aside, Asians have long been discriminated against, you can read journals of people in the old west who fucking hated them. California considered and sometimes passed really discriminatory measures against them. Anyone who doesn't know this is woefully ignorant of history, my freaking 7th grade kid knows this.

  3. Fill the Gap by CycloneGT · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why are Women and Minorities (not including Male Asians) being permitted to opt out of technology education? If anyone is going to take this problem seriously, those under-served communities need to be disproportionally encouraged to peruse technology education.

    1. Re:Fill the Gap by ScentCone · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why are Women and Minorities (not including Male Asians) being permitted to opt out of technology education?

      This! Skin pigment and chromosonal quota perfection in every walk of life is so much more important than any other thing that might make someone choose something else to do that we should force people to study things in which they're not interested. Because that way, we can be sure that they'll be passionate about hating it even more, so that when they apply for that quota-mandated position, we know they'll be miserable SOBs to work with, and productivity will be sure to suffer, for which we'll be sure to blame Evil Corporations.

      Jesse Jackson is a hypocritical, lying fool. His agenda (which is to extort money from public and private institutions so that he and his entourage can spend their time well compensated for doing nothing but whining) is utterly transparent. But it plugs right into the Nanny State world view, which requires professional quota referees for every last thing, including the size of your drink cup and the precise tone of the skin of the programmer in the cube next to you.

      Jackson is complaining that Amazon's stats aren't precise enough, but I notice he's not calling for stats about the measured skills and academic records of the couldn't-get-hired-there folks he thinks should be qualified strictly on cosmetic grounds. If he thinks that the members of a particular racial group aren't landing enough jobs at Amazon, he should be turning to that group and lecturing them about developing the critical thinking, communication, technical, entrepreneurial, scientific, and related skills that make someone a shoe-in for such jobs. ALL of that starts at home, and is pretty well viable or terminally broken by the time a kid is half way through elementary school. And THAT is all about the culture out of which that kid emerges. About which Jackson should be doing some serious introspection, if he could stand to look at himself in the mirror. He not only deliberately confuses race with culture, but he deliberately confuses cause and effect - all so that he can thunder on about it, threaten boycotts, and receive grant money from his extortion victims. This is just another round of his racketeering outfit doing what it does.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  4. I'm not a fan of PUSH, but they have a point by jratcliffe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Comparing Amazon to Google or Facebook, is really apples-to-oranges, given that they're in very different businesses.

  5. You mean by Chrisq · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "The broad assumption is that a high percentage of their black and Latino employees work in their warehouses."

    You mean they discriminate against White and Asian warehouse employees?