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Silicon Valley Tech Workforce Is Vastly Different From US, Say Feds (computerworld.com)
Reader dcblogs shares an article on Computer World: In recent years, major high-tech firms have started releasing workforce diversity data, along with a promise to improve. And there is much room for improvement, according to federal officials. Among the top 75 Silicon Valley tech firms, whites make up 47% of the workforce, Asian Americans 41%, Hispanics, 6% and African Americans 3%, according to an analysis by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Women account for 30% of the workforce at these 75 firms. The diversity makeup of these Silicon Valley high-tech firms is very different from the national employment picture. When compared to overall private industry employment, the tech sector nationally -- not just Silicon Valley -- employed a larger share of whites (63% to 68%), as well as a larger share of Asian Americans (6% to 14%) and a smaller share of African Americans (14% to 7%) and Hispanics (14% to 8%). Employers with a workforce greater than 100 file reports to the EEOC about their employees' race, color, gender and national origin. Nationally, 64% of the employees in high-tech are men versus 52% in the broader workforce. Women account for 36% of the tech workforce, versus comprising 48% of the broader workforce.
So, my takeaway from this is that Indians (i.e. from the subcontinent, not the reservation) self-report as white.
In other findings, federal officials say that the IQ level of Silicon Valley workers is significantly higher than employees in the rest of the country. "We cannot determine the reasons for that, and are continuing our studies to determine the root cause", said one spokesman.
People in Silicon Valley are far less bigoted about sexual orientation than most other people. However, there aren't nearly enough women and minorities there. We need more of them in tech.
So are we supposed to infer that these tech companies are acting against their own best interests, by passing over qualified minority candidates for less-qualified people from the privileged groups?
I do not find the racial and sex mixture for Silicone Valley to be odd considering the following factors. I am not saying these are good things, but they are the big influences IMO:
1) Privilege and Opportunity - It has been my experience that many of these people either grew up in a solidly middle class or upper middle class environment. A good education was available for them from birth, right through to university. This education makes a big difference.
2) Birds of a Feather Flock Together - People often associate themselves with others who are like-minded, and similar in a number of characteristics. This could even include race.
3) Females & Sciences - Women in general are under-represented in the sciences, especially within IT. IT has built itself a nice little sausagefest.
Having noted all of the above, SV is getting more diverse now by giving the high paying jobs to people with H1B Visas. I am not so sure this is a good thing. It would be awesome if the USA can get more opportunities for its current population.
Why is this news? There's only a conspiracy if the ratio of applicants' races differs greatly to those hired, and if there is proof that high quality applicants were turned away. Maybe African Americans and Hispanics just don't want to work 16 hour days with an expensive mortgage to cover.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
If you look only at 2nd-generation-or-more Americans (those whose parents were born and raised in America), parental education probably accounts for most of the difference for Whites, African-Americans, and Hispanics.
High-tech is typically skewed towards the highly-trained, which is correlated with parents who value education.
Among those whose parents aren't immigrants, having parents who value education is correlated to having educated parents. Having educated parents is also correlated to growing up in a middle-class-or-higher household.
Thanks to American's sad history of racial discrimination, having educated parents is also highly correlated to being non-Hispanic white and negatively correlated with being anything else, at least with respect to people whose parents were raised in the United States.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"Anything else" primarily means African-American and Hispanic.
I don't have enough information about people with Asian, Indian-sub-continent, Middle East, Native American, or other backgrounds and whose parents grew up in the United States to know if there is a negative, or for that matter, positive correlation.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I guess we need more Asians in the national employment picture to bring them up to the level of Silicon Valley.
Sure, the Silicon Valley tech companies could do better to match the national diversity average of some of the demographics, but that's possibly irrelevant. What's missing, as is all too often the case in diversity stats, is the breakdown of the locally available workforce that is qualified to actually do the jobs in question. If the qualified employment pool simply isn't there then there's not a lot else they can do except employ lesser qualified people to make up the numbers for the diversity figures rather than just going on merit, which just serves to generate resentment, reduces productivity, and potentially risks an entire demographic being stereotyped as illsuited for the job in question.
Or bring up the diversity numbers through staff brought in from the necessary demographics via H1-Bs, of course.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
These numbers are effectively arbitrary, especially without knowing about the demographics, skills, certifications, qualifications, etc., of the applicants.
Articles such as this suggest a lot of things in a very hypocritical manner, or are at least exceedingly one-sided in scope. The author is jumping to conclusions without having any data to back it up.
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
Why are we talking about this? Who cares?
An immediate problem I see with the results (based on the summary's description), is it is comparing the Silicon Valley tech firms to the national average, but the workforce in the Silicon Valley area is probably not the same demographic representation as the national average. If Asians are a larger percentage of the local community, which I believe they are in California, and even more so in Silicon Valley, then I would expect them to have a higher representation in the work force there. This isn't an issue of "diversity", at least for those without an agenda. It is like comparing the people employed at Indian casinos located on a reservation and noting that Native Americans have a higher representation than the national average. Well, DUH. There may be a counter argument that this is a case of the tail wagging the dog since the local population makeup is being influenced by the local industry.
the numbers and conclusions in this article make no sense. 6% to 14% is not larger than 41%. If the numbers represent a range, then why use different orders for the other two ranges. If the numbers are comparisons, how does 6% = 41% and 14% > 41%? maybe the writer can come to the valley to learn how to make sense.
I think we should base the national minimum wage on Silicon Valley!!
Women are definitely underrepresented. But if the article's numbers are accurate; 47% white with the remainder consisting of minorities is within a reasonable margin to the demographics of the community.
http://www.bayareacensus.ca.go...
As of the 2010 census, whites make up 52.5% of the Bay Area's population, with the remainder again consisting of various minorities. A 5.5% discrepancy is not unreasonable, and quite possibly within the combined margin of error of the census and the study. Asians appear to be somewhat overrepresented, but I would guess that would come from the Indian-American population self-reporting as Asian.
Imagine all the people...
Just about any industry under the microscope is going to differ from the mean - especially if it is a small, isolated sample. Silicon Valley is one area of one part of the country in one industry. SURPRISE!
...culture does.
Until people start rejecting thug culture, or barrio culture, and start embracing "white" or "asian" culture, with proper english, a commitment to academics, and a disavowal of violence and misogyny, they're not going to get into the well paying tech jobs.
Where's the data to show that these tech firms have had proportionally equal number of applicants from each group represented in the report? Surely they're not suggesting that tech firms should prefer applicants based on their race or country of origin, that would be illegal.
Does it matter there are almost no blacks or hispanics in IT? Does it really matter? Honestly? No, it doesn't. This smacks of leftist BS. I've been in IT across three decades, and I'm perfectly happy with the whites and asians I work with, and the fact that there are zero women in my department. Thankfully. No walking on PC eggshells.
Americans of Asian descent were very badly treated in the past. For a good example, read Robert Louis Stevenson's "Across the Plains", published in 1892.
"Despised Races
Of all stupid ill-feelings, the sentiment of my fellow Caucasians towards our companions in the Chinese car was the most stupid and the worst. They seemed never to have looked at them, listened to them, or thought of them, but hated them a priori. The Mongols were their enemies in that cruel and treacherous battle-field of money. They could work better and cheaper in half a hundred industries, and hence there was no calumny too idle for the Caucasians to repeat, and even to believe. They declared them hideous vermin, and affected a kind of choking in the throat when they beheld them. Now, as a matter of fact, the young Chinese man is so like a large class of European women, that on raising my head and suddenly catching sight of one at a considerable distance, I have for an instant been deceived by the resemblance. I do not say it is the most attractive class of our women, but for all that many a manâ(TM)s wife is less pleasantly favoured. Again, my emigrants declared that the Chinese were dirty. I cannot say they were clean, for that was impossible upon the journey; but in their efforts after cleanliness they put the rest of us to shame. We all pigged and stewed in one infamy, wet our hands and faces for half a minute daily on the platform, and were unashamed. But the Chinese never lost an opportunity, and you would see them washing their feetâ"an act not dreamed of among ourselvesâ"and going as far as decency permitted to wash their whole bodies. I may remark by the way that the dirtier people are in their persons the more delicate is their sense of modesty. A clean man strips in a crowded boathouse; but he who is unwashed slinks in and out of bed without uncovering an inch of skin. Lastly, these very foul and malodorous Caucasians entertained the surprising illusion that it was the Chinese waggon, and that alone, which stank. I have said already that it was the exceptions and notably the freshest of the three.
These judgments are typical of the feeling in all Western America. The Chinese are considered stupid, because they are imperfectly acquainted with English. They are held to be base, because their dexterity and frugality enable them to underbid the lazy, luxurious Caucasian. They are said to be thieves; I am sure they have no monopoly of that. They are called cruel; the Anglo-Saxon and the cheerful Irishman may each reflect before he bears the accusation. I am told, again, that they are of the race of river pirates, and belong to the most despised and dangerous class in the Celestial Empire. But if this be so, what remarkable pirates have we here! and what must be the virtues, the industry, the education, and the intelligence of their superiors at home!
Awhile ago it was the Irish, now it is the Chinese that must go. Such is the cry. It seems, after all, that no country is bound to submit to immigration any more than to invasion; each is war to the knife, and resistance to either but legitimate defence. Yet we may regret the free tradition of the republic, which loved to depict herself with open arms, welcoming all unfortunates. And certainly, as a man who believes that he loves freedom, I may be excused some bitterness when I find her sacred name misused in the contention. It was but the other day that I heard a vulgar fellow in the Sand-lot, the popular tribune of San Francisco, roaring for arms and butchery. âoeAt the call of Abraham Lincoln,â said the orator, âoeye rose in the name of freedom to set free the negroes; can ye not rise and liberate yourselves from a few dirty Mongolians?â
For my own part, I could not look but with wonder and respect on the Chinese. Their forefathers watched the stars before mine had begun to keep pigs. Gun-powder and printing, which the other day we imitated, and a school of manners which we never had the delicacy so m
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
What do they actually want? To see an even distribution of everything represented? Or a distribution that matches the actual distribution that exists in the total population?
They seem to forget that *choice* is a matter here also. If different %s of peoples from different races and/or ethnicities *choose* to pursue whatever, who cares?
Also, it seems they may forget that there are actual biological reasons fewer women pursue full-time careers--some *choose* to be full-time mothers and dedicate themself to rearing the next generation of worker bees. That should count for something also.
So are women proportioned the same across each race?
Here we go again with the diversity police.
How about this: we hire the best person for the job regardless of race, color, gender, etc. and then stop giving a shit on what their race, color, gender, etc. is.
And for all you SJW's out there: if you're having life-saving brain surgery done, who do you want doing it? The best brain surgeon available, or the diversity hire?
Until you're ready to accept the latter when you're OWN skin is on the line, STFU about diversity.
That many percentages raises alerts in my B.S.ometer
Percentages are a great way to hide data, and the truth.
Say there are a small handful of really large companies that have discriminatory hiring practices. While many of the others are more on par with the rest of the population. To say Silicon Valley Culture is out of step due to a few big bad Apples really messes things up.
What is the variance across companies. How are these distributed across all the companies? You know real analysis not just percentages.
Percentages are just so you can complain on a bumper sticker.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
This article is just a excuse so the fedora-neckbeard crowd can congratulate themselves for being better human beings than those diverse non tech workers.
self identify?
Since the transgender and homosexual crowds can "self-identify" themselves to be whatever they want; can I also self identify as transgender, female, lesbian, African-American, disabled, and old in order to take advantage of some affirmative action benefits?
Friday is always Diversity Day here at Slashdot!
Any story like this I pretty much ignore because of Simpson's Paradox.
Roughly 79% of all registered nurses are female! There's only 9.3% that are white males! That is totally off from the breakdown of the workforce at large.
Clearly we need an immediate and sweeping changes to get more men, especially white men in to nursing.
How is this confusing? It said Asian American not Chinese American. India is part of Asia.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Since no doubt 'the Fed' will tell us that it's "racism" (i.e. white people simply wanting to live around their own kind, in their OWN countries, rather than being genocided out of existence by mass immigration, thanks to the JEWS).
This is so sickening, but most of all, it's the WHITE traitors who allowed the Jews to force all of this shit onto us whites. I'm looking at becoming an old man who is going to be a white minority in a third world shithole of a country - because THERE WON'T BE ANY WHITE COUNTRIES LEFT BY THEN. Which is GENOCIDE.
Do any of the cuck idiots on here have an alternative explanation? Are you ready to die when a) everything collapses under the weight of the useless third world parasites, and your work colleagues, WHO KNOW YOU'RE RESPONSIBLE for all of this, KILL YOU, or b) whites finally fight back and take back our countries, and deport the Jews and their non-white pets, and then WE KILL YOU...
You don't understand. Diversity doesn't mean Indians or Asians. It means LESS WHITE MALES.
FTFY!
Just because someone works at a tech company doesn't mean they are doing tech related work. It's very contradictory that the media keeps pointing out how few women there are and making a fuss about it but then applauding the companies for trying to be more inclusive but ignoring the fact that the EEOC reports show that all the "women in tech" are actually "women in HR, middle management, and labor." The reports show that only 10-15% women are actually in any sort of tech related role at these companies.
I don't care if a gender likes a job or not but I'm sick of all the news that pretends to care just to get reactions.
This would change drastically id the US ever decided to enforce the letter of the H-1B law. As things are, they get no oversight and very little press, something Big Tech (fill in the names) have lobbied hard to maintain. Money talks.
Organization? You must be joking..
Things were going somewhat well there after Dice sold the site. These SJW stories really are a nuisance, and the anti-SJW reactionary comments are just as bad. Most of the stories I come here for are often also found on Soylent, and the comments I used to come here for just aren't here any more. I heard that Ellen Pao was on the move again, and I was half-expecting yet another round of SJW hand-wringing. I can't take it any more.
- Feminists and SJWs: Your mission is to figure out why high school and college girls and young women are not taking computer courses and seem to have absolutely no initiative when it comes to doing things like running through a Linux from Scratch. If it's harassment, your mission is to find out who is doing the harassment. If it's fear of harassment, you brought this all on yourself. At the very least, even if you start actually correcting these problems now, we can't realistically expect to see the results for another 6-8 years. At least, that's what you would do if your priorities were what you say they are.
- Anti-SJWs: If you think all you have to do is "identify" as this or that to get some kind of privilege, I encourage you to do so. Your experiences will educate you. You're really not being clever. Remember when Jessica Williams gave a woman who identified as African-American a sound thrashing on national TV? You have been warned. but please, don't take my word for it. Be my guest.
It's like that jogger in the morning who lets her dog shit on your lawn. One or twice every now and then is not a big deal. When it's a daily occurrence, then it's time to think about building a fence or getting a hedge row.
Sorry but really, this all comes down to cultural backgrounds and education. More asian and white families place a higher value on education at all economic levels. Obviously those with more resources tend to do better.
Having more resources means having more technology at home.
There is also the cultural side. Having mostly grown up in southern California, I attended very diverse schools and the majority of people taking computer related classes are nerds and most nerds are white and asian. See, it isn't cool being a nerd no matter how you spin it.
Much of the black and latino populations are both lower on the economic totem pole, have less education focus in their cultures and typically have fewer nerds amongst their ranks. Black people don't give black nerds a pass just because they are black. It's probably worse for a black nerd then even a white nerd because being smart often does get associates with asians and whites, even by students at that level.
You will see people saying, why you trying to be white.
All these things are major reasons there is less diversity in technology.
Are Indians classified as Asians?
These stats are misleading as many of the non-whites are very likely not American citizens and/or were not American citizens when they began working in tech in the US, but used it as a vehicle for citizenship.
The bigger issue is how many American citizens have been put out of work by these companies importing workers from India and elsewhere? What are the yearly numbers for that over the last 20 years?
Now THAT would be significant, if those numbers could be accurately gathered and reported.
The diversity stats, without nationality/citizenship data, are not only meaningless but are also completely misleading.
Report diversity stats for American citizens only, and the picture will change DRASTICALLY.
Lots of people are different from lots of other people. This is an arbitrary point -- who gives a fucking shit. #WGAFS
Given proof (test scores, success statistics, etc.) that the "diverse" candidate is actually the best, we'll accept it.
Without proof though, I'm sorry to say that the reasonable assumption is that we're dealing with a diversity hire.
This is a harmful side-effect of affirmative action. Don't like it? Kill affirmative action. Until that happens, we'll make the reasonable assumption.
*rolling eyes* I have no idea what the submitter's implication is... IMO, there aren't enough highly skilled people period. That's why special talent is shipped in from all over the world to work here. No time for bigotry. Tech hires on merit. EEOC are the biggest trolls ever; every case they litigate is the flameyest mofo ever. If it's that bigoted then how did Tim Cook and Satya Nadella make it to CEO by climbing the ranks of these companies?
I live in Australia and work as a sysadmin. Every year I noticed there are more and more Indians in the IT industry. I'd say in about 10-20 years there will probably no long be whites doing those types of jobs. Yay for diversity!
Just so I can invest where the success is going to be...
where? I haven't seen it (in Canada assuming ~equivalent to the US). Or do they count tech doc writers, product managers, business analysts etc in the mix? My experience it is more like 20%. Also your mileage might vary the career path seems different. Very few women dev managers the manager path for women devs seems to be to go into a more business side role, just my experience at 5 companies in 3 industries. I'm sure other places are different just 36% to me seems rediculous. It would be close enough to equal that socials, hackatons or meetings wouldn't look like the sausage parties they are.
Let's not forget that to achieve diversity, we need more white males in professional male sports, more white females in professional women's sports, more white males in education and nursing, more male models, etc etc.
My guess is they have to improve their diversity as well.
It seems sooooo easy to screen job candidates based on qualifications that to hire based on other factors would be NOT in the best interest of the company. How about testing CURRENT employees for qualifications?! I have, MANY times, encountered personnel from a company I hired that are far under-qualified for the job they were supposed to be doing, and the 'diversity data' of these incompetents' do NOT jive with any numbers I see here. If you are NOT qualified, either GET qualified or find a more suitable job!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
I identify as Anglo, not Caucasian.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
This kind of logic annoys me. Apples and Oranges. By the same token, the NBA doesn't match the "general workforce" ethnic diversity STATISTICS either. When you are in an industry that seeks the best of the best, race doesn't factor in, unless it naturally does. Should I cry about the fact that the NBA is predominantly black when it's that way because the individual talents of the players predisposed them to that field of expertise? This type of statistical report has no real meaning.