After following Google’s lead and releasing diversity statistics last year, Facebook provided its first update today. The good: There’s been some improvement. The bad: It’s clear that changing hiring practices and becoming more diverse is going to be a long process in Silicon Valley.
In a blog post releasing the figures, Facebook’s global diversity director, Maxine Williams, gave some detail on Facebook’s efforts to move the dial, including the “diverse slate approach” being used in parts of its US business. That means, in its pilot programs, the company is trying to make sure hiring managers see at least one candidate from an underrepresented group for every open role. Facebook is also expanding summer training opportunities for disadvantaged groups, and putting more emphasis on “harder hitting” anti-bias training.
“While we have achieved positive movement over the last year, it’s clear to all of us that we still aren’t where we want to be,” Williams writes. “There’s more work to do.”
Here how Facebook’s US workforce broke down by ethnicity this year versus 2014:
Here’s tech workers alone:
And senior leadership:
Facebook also updated its global gender data:
Facebook is by no means an outlier. Here’s how it compares on a companywide basis to other tech companies.
And on gender:
[Note: Google updated its figures earlier this month; data from Apple and Yahoo are from last year]