Apple says recruitment of women & minorities improving, company will be more transparent
Efforts by Apple to improve recruitment of women and minorities in its workforce are slowly paying off, the company has revealed, as it hopes other corporations will follow its lead in diversity and transparency.
The company is planning to release its next diversity report this summer, but before then, human resources chief Denise Young Smith spoke with Fortune about the progress the company has made. She revealed that about 35 percent of Apple's recruits are currently women, and that hiring of African-Americans and Hispanics has increased.
In comparison, a year ago, Apple's overall employee base was 70 percent male, 30 percent female, revealing that new recruiting efforts are beginning to tip the balance slightly.
The progress comes a year after Apple pledged to give more details on the diversity of its workforce. The company's current workforce is overwhelmingly male and white --?something that Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has said must be improved.
"All around the world, our team at Apple is united in the belief that being different makes us better," Cook wrote in a letter to employees last year. "We know that each generation has a responsibility to build upon the gains of the past, expanding the rights and freedoms we enjoy to the many who are still striving for justice."
The company has also backed those efforts financially, investing more than $50 million into a number of nonprofit organizations intended to increase the presence of women, minorities and veterans working in the technology industry. Among the organizations supported are the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and the National Center for Women and Information Technology.
Smith previously served as Apple's VP of Global Retail Stores, but she began working in retail as the company began its storefront efforts in 2000, when she was recruited to head retail human resources.
The company is planning to release its next diversity report this summer, but before then, human resources chief Denise Young Smith spoke with Fortune about the progress the company has made. She revealed that about 35 percent of Apple's recruits are currently women, and that hiring of African-Americans and Hispanics has increased.
In comparison, a year ago, Apple's overall employee base was 70 percent male, 30 percent female, revealing that new recruiting efforts are beginning to tip the balance slightly.
The progress comes a year after Apple pledged to give more details on the diversity of its workforce. The company's current workforce is overwhelmingly male and white --?something that Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has said must be improved.
"All around the world, our team at Apple is united in the belief that being different makes us better," Cook wrote in a letter to employees last year. "We know that each generation has a responsibility to build upon the gains of the past, expanding the rights and freedoms we enjoy to the many who are still striving for justice."
The company has also backed those efforts financially, investing more than $50 million into a number of nonprofit organizations intended to increase the presence of women, minorities and veterans working in the technology industry. Among the organizations supported are the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and the National Center for Women and Information Technology.
Smith previously served as Apple's VP of Global Retail Stores, but she began working in retail as the company began its storefront efforts in 2000, when she was recruited to head retail human resources.
Comments
This is a 14th amendment civil rights violation against white males. You can't hire someone based on their skin color or gender.
I am still waiting to see how Apple and other companies are going to make minorities who are not intersted in being an Engineer or any kind or sort into an engineer of some kind. You can not hire what does not exist today. What this sounds like is Apple is targeting those few individual who fall into the minority category which also happen to be an engineer and hiring them away from other companies.
Half of the planet are indian programmers; Google, MS, Oracle etc. have many principals who are indian. I only know Apple employees by the keynotes/presentations they do, and they're mighty WHITE and MALE. Last keynote was the first time I recall seeing females. As a corporate entity, they SEEM not to have many minorities, based on their public face. As for women in tech in general, girls will enter comp sci courses if they find them interesting. In the workplace, women have to deal with the quota of asinine dufuses that inhabit most tech startups like anyone else.
If I walk into an Apple store, I don't give a crap about what color the salesperson is, I don't give a crap about what sex they are, all I care about is that they are knowledgeable, polite and can quickly assist me with whatever it is that I am there for. I don't want some clueless person who has less than 1/10 the knowledge that I have about Apple and their products, and they're there because of their sex or race for example.
It should be about qualifications and skill 100%, not any BS sex, or any BS race factoring into the picture.
I don't want the ratio to eventually be 50 male/50 female. That shouldn't be the goal, and I hope that it's not. I want it to be whatever it is, based solely on the skills and qualifications. If it were 80/20, I'd be totally fine with that. If it were 99/1, I'd be fine with that too. May the job go to the most qualified.
Do you think the EEOC will investigate if white males say they are being discriminated against? Two protected classes here, sex and race. I hope their transparency comes back to bite them in the arse when they face lawsuits from whites and/or men when it becomes clear that those are decisions in the hiring process. It's supposed to work both ways. We'll see.
You'll be attacked shortly and told that white males are the source of all evil and should be drawn and quartered.
Tim's legacy will not be what he expects. Shame, too, he had a chance.
Half of the planet are indian programmers; Google, MS, Oracle etc. have many principals who are indian. I only know Apple employees by the keynotes/presentations they do, and they're mighty WHITE and MALE. Last keynote was the first time I recall seeing females. As a corporate entity, they SEEM not to have many minorities, based on their public face. As for women in tech in general, girls will enter comp sci courses if they find them interesting. In the workplace, women have to deal with the quota of asinine dufuses that inhabit most tech startups like anyone else.
Don't know about engineers and corporate employees, but there's a whole lot of minorities and women in the stores.
If I walk into an Apple store, I don't give a crap about what color the salesperson is, I don't give a crap about what sex they are, all I care about is that they are knowledgeable, polite and can quickly assist me with whatever it is that I am there for. I don't want some clueless person who has less than 1/10 the knowledge that I have about Apple and their products, and they're there because of their sex or race for example.
It should be about qualifications and skill 100%, not any BS sex, or any BS race factoring into the picture.
I don't want the ratio to eventually be 50 male/50 female. That shouldn't be the goal, and I hope that it's not. I want it to be whatever it is, based solely on the skills and qualifications. If it were 80/20, I'd be totally fine with that. If it were 99/1, I'd be fine with that too. May the job go to the most qualified.
It wouldn't benefit Apple or its customers if the hires weren't qualified, regardless of race or gender. The issues are that there are gaps in the hiring processes that lead to hiring more white males, even when other candidates that aren't white or male would also be qualified. I've spoken to quite a few folks and it isn't only at Apple. You have to show that there is opportunity for everyone to be hired in order to motivate a society to want to change. If any specific group sees that opportunities are lacking, then they won't work towards higher goals.
Don't know about engineers and corporate employees, but there's a whole lot of minorities and women in the stores.
True - I was only thinking about corporate.
This is a 14th amendment civil rights violation against white males. You can't hire someone based on their skin color or gender.
It's a weak argument. They aren't ignoring white males. They are improving hiring processes so that others don't get ignored. When you have that large a group of employees that are a single gender and race, something is skewed. Here's the kicker. There is still a lack of candidates, regardless of gender or race. It's actually one of the reason so many tech companies have been lobbying for immigration reform.
Such a drama queen, you are.
If I walk into an Apple store, I don't give a crap about what color the salesperson is, I don't give a crap about what sex they are, all I care about is that they are knowledgeable, polite and can quickly assist me with whatever it is that I am there for. I don't want some clueless person who has less than 1/10 the knowledge that I have about Apple and their products, and they're there because of their sex or race for example.
Apple managed to release a health app that didn't do the basic things that women needed it to do. I can guess why this happened.
If you want your products to appeal to a diverse audience, you need a diverse workforce. It's not rocket science.
I'm not trying to be snarky, but it seems difficult to hire towards a skin color or chromosome set blindly, but also intentionally. Someone please help me understand how that works.
Being transparent about current employee demographic percentages is a separate thing, and at least one thing you can certainly do.
It's a weak argument. They aren't ignoring white males. They are improving hiring processes so that others don't get ignored. When you have that large a group of employees that are a single gender and race, something is skewed. Here's the kicker. There is still a lack of candidates, regardless of gender or race. It's actually one of the reason so many tech companies have been lobbying for immigration reform.
Why is it considered skewed if an employer has say a majority of white employees? I fail to see what the big deal is. You don't see people out there saying there aren't enough white players in the NBA. All these companies that are trying to hire more "minorities" are really basically doing reverse racism. Immigration reform? Why do we need that? We already have laws for immigration, but the issue is this current administration sues states who try to enforce the laws themselves. See Arizona and others. Allowing millions of more uneducated people in this country isn't going to help anything. The overwhelming majority of people flooding across the border don't even have a high school education. There are current programs that allow people in fields such as tech to get visas so they are able to come here to work and live.
This is a 14th amendment civil rights violation against white males. You can't hire someone based on their skin color or gender.
Yeah, white males are so discriminated in the US, aren't they? Such victims. Also, your understanding of civil rights and law is hilariously, embarrassingly bad.
You'll be attacked shortly and told that white males are the source of all evil and should be drawn and quartered.
Tim's legacy will not be what he expects. Shame, too, he had a chance.
..and, there we go. We can always count on some insane, sensational comment from you, including straw men and fallacies. No, nobody is going to say that, but the fact that you feel the need to spout such predictions gives us some insight into your ludicrous train of thought.
Don't worry, Tim has already solidified his legacy, and it will only get stronger. Don't be so delusional as to think your extreme ideology is anywhere close to mainstream. His legacy won't be tarnished by encouraging and promoting diversity, as much as you wish it would.
I don't know why everyone still thinks that Hindus and Chinese are minorities, combined they are almost half the worlds's population. And a huge number of developers are Asians, in every tech company I worked in. I have seen few black/latino/women developers, and they are difficult to find, maybe one in 100 resumes, unless I'm specifically looking for name that might fit a racial profile. That's one of reasons people hate working for large corps, with their levels of bureaucracy, to hiring mandates, to earth hours, and other non-sense.
I want to think Apple is getting the BEST people they can get to help make their products and not discriminate against ANYONE or give anyone unfair advantages. EVERYTHING is PC paralysis these days.
If there is a skew toward a race or gender for any reason other than qualifications, indeed, that is a problem. But THAT is the problem that needs to be addressed. Not just simply giving FAVOR to a certain race or gender just to 'balance' the crowd.
Yes, such a shortage that they bring in immigrants, force Americans to train them, and then fire the Americans.
Real shortage indeed.
Here's the kicker. There is still a lack of candidates, regardless of gender or race. It's actually one of the reason so many tech companies have been lobbying for immigration reform.
This is debatable. It often seems more like a lack of candidates who will accept the wages they are willing to pay.