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Apple issues diversity report, promises better gender/racial balance
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Aug 12, 2014, 01:25 PM
 
Following up on a promise made last month, Apple has released its first-ever internal diversity report. The company notes that globally, 7 out of 10 of its workers are male. In the US its workforce is 55 percent white, 15 percent Asian, 11 percent Hispanic, and just 7 percent black. 2 percent of people asked said they had two or more ethnicities; 9 percent chose not to identify their race.

The company has also broken down its US racial makeup according to "tech," "non-tech," and leadership categories. Significantly, whites hold 64 percent of the company's management roles, but 56 percent of non-tech positions, and 54 percent of tech jobs. Asians come in second place in tech and leadership -- at 23 and 21 percent, respectively -- but Hispanics hold second in non-tech at 14 percent.

Accompanying the report is a letter from CEO Tim Cook. "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," he writes. "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."

Later on, Cook adds that "Apple is also a sponsor of the Human Rights Campaign, the country's largest LGBT rights organization, as well as the National Center for Women & Information Technology, which is encouraging young women to get involved in technology and the sciences. The work we do with these groups is meaningful and inspiring. We know we can do more, and we will."
     
DavidO
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Aug 12, 2014, 02:05 PM
 
If it isn't broken, don't fix it...
     
jameshays
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Aug 12, 2014, 02:14 PM
 
Well, it wouldn't be the first time I didn't get a job because I was white, male and married to a female.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Aug 12, 2014, 02:42 PM
 
You applied for a job at Apple?
     
JackWebb
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Aug 12, 2014, 02:55 PM
 
Do we bother accounting for the diversity of people's interests and talents? I can try to get my daughter to be a programmer but she hates it. I can try to tell my son to give up programming and go into art and design, but he has no interest. What a terrible world it will be without us all having our interests and talents in equal proportion to our gender and racial categorizations.
     
bobolicious
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Aug 12, 2014, 04:35 PM
 
...has the radical concept of hiring on merit ever come in to play...?
     
jvputten
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Aug 12, 2014, 06:36 PM
 
"has the radical concept of hiring on merit ever come in to play...?"

For God's sake, trying turning off Fox News and reading a book for once. Read Jonathan Kozol's 'Savage Inequalities' and see how well your BS "merit" argument holds up.
     
bobolicious
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Aug 12, 2014, 07:36 PM
 
'trying turning off Fox News'

for what it is worth I don't have a tv (snuff that flame assumption ... I might agree that a quota protocol has merit in a baseline prejudicial reform, however merit can take many forms, depending on the basis of judgement, especially when contemplating less easily short term quantifiable aspects such as sustainability, in and of itself a potentially debatable term, and one apple seems to pursue...
     
Charles Martin
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Aug 13, 2014, 04:16 AM
 
Nevertheless, jv's recommendation is a good one. Nowhere did Cook say, or even imply, that race/gender/etc trumps talent -- I think at Apple more than almost any other company, we all know (or should know) that this inherently isn't true. What he *is* saying is that the company needs to look beyond "inherent white privilege" (again, see book referenced) and scout talent from other than the usual suspects *as well* as where it is getting it now.
Charles Martin
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