A major company says it wants to become more “diverse.”
Diverse in this case means it wants to hire more workers who come from different backgrounds or have different genders or are from different cultures.
Google is a large company with more than 44,000 workers around the world. It has many products but it is best known as a search engine for the Internet.
This week it released a study that says too many of its workers are young, male and white or Asian.
Google says it wants to hire more women, gay people, older workers and more people from different cultures.
The company has clubs that support diverse employees. For instance, its Black Googler Network helps black Google employees attract and train African Americans. It also has a “Greygler” support group for older workers and a “Gaygler” group for people who are gay or lesbian.
In spite of its open policy about hiring diverse employees, Google’s workforce is still 70 per cent male and 91 per cent white (61 per cent) or Asian (30 per cent).
Only two per cent of Google employees are black and just three per cent are Hispanic.
Just 30 per cent of Google employees are women.
Large companies in the United States have to report on their company’s diversity and give a report to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. However, those numbers are kept private. Google decided to make that information public—to tell people about it. A spokesperson for the company said that the first step to fixing a problem is to admit it, and talk about it.
Some people say that not just Google, but other technology companies should become more diverse.
CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
By Kathleen Tilly
Writing/Discussion Prompt
What does diversity mean to you? Drawing upon your own words and experiences, write a definition of diversity. Use examples from your school or community to illustrate your definition.
Reading Prompt: Extending Understanding
Many larger companies in the United States have to report on their company’s diversity. However, those numbers are kept private. Google took the bold step and decided to make that information public.
Do you think the diversity information for all companies should be made public? Why or why not?
Junior
Extend understanding of texts by connecting the ideas in them to their own knowledge, experience, and insights, to other familiar texts, and to the world around them (OME, Reading: 1.6).
Intermediate
Extend understanding of texts, including increasingly complex or difficult texts, by connecting the ideas in them to their own knowledge, experience, and insights, to other familiar texts, and to the world around them (OME, Reading: 1.6).
Math Feature: Per Cent
There are a lot of data in this article. Read through all of the data and draw a picture to represent what current employment looks like at Google. You could do a bar graph, a pie graph, a pictograph or any other visual representation to show what the workforce looks like.
