4 ms·

I'm strongly generalizing here, but the overall population statistics might mean that minorities hiring minorities is more of an outlier than white people hirin

I'm strongly generalizing here, but the overall population statistics might mean that minorities hiring minorities is more of an outlier than white people hiring white people. In a predominantly white society, it is perfectly conceivable that you'll hire predominantly white people even if you are completely unbiased, purely because they are strongly over-represented in the population. White people hiring white people is thus not a statistical outlier, and while there is definitely nepotism going on in this cadre as well, it's less easy to pinpoint just based on the race. On the other hand, you will likely have to go out of your way to build a team mostly staffed by minorities unless there's some other bias, e.g. that minority is over-represented in your specialty. In this case, if you have a team purely of a homogenous race that is otherwise a small minority of the overall population, it is more of an outlier. That's not saying there's nepotism at hand, but the likelihood of such a team composition arising naturally without some direct bias is simply lower than in case of a team composed of the major race of the population.

shapefrog 4y ago
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045221 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045221 Anything not aligned with the breakdown here is just straight up racist hiring practices - 60% white, 20% hispanic / latino, 15% black, 5% asia (subcontinent & se asia).
- misnome 4y ago
  > Anything not aligned with the breakdown here is just straight up racist hiring practices So, every field and job market has exactly the same distribution as the entire country?
  - shapefrog 4y ago
    Wouldnt it be nice. Or are you suggesting that some races / genders / etc are better at some things than others?
    - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
      > Or are you suggesting that some races / genders / etc are better at some things than others? Aren't they? Women are worse at pretty much every sport than men, and NBA teams are very far away from average racial representation in general population. Even with non-physical activities, asians are overrepresented in many technical areas, and there were/are even lawsuits [0] about discriminating asians in favour of other races in colleges. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v._President_and_Fellows_of_Harvard_College https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v... > Arcidiacono suggested that the applicant's race plays a significant role in admissions decisions.[8] According to his testimony, if an Asian American applicant with certain characteristics (like scores, GPAs, and extracurricular activities, family background) would result in a 25% statistical likelihood of admission, the same applicant, if white, will have a 36% likelihood of admission.[8] Hispanic and Black applicants with the same characteristics will have a 77% and 95% predicted chance of admission, respectively.[8] So yeah... chances of getting a male asian programmer are relatively higher than their representation in the general population.
      - lovecg 4y ago
        The flaw with this argument is that all the possibly reasonable examples of differences you mention don’t imply that all other observed differences are benign and there’s nothing to be done.
        ajsnigrutin 4y ago
        Sure... give all kids the same minimal starting point (schooling). Workplaces should just pick the best candidates, no matter the race or whatever other protected group status they look at. I live in a former socialist country (we had red stars, parades and a dictator), and considering race or any other non-merit based factor in eg. high school and college aplications would be seen as wrong (and in case of race/gender, racist/sexist). Same for jobs.
    - snet0 4y ago
      I'm not sure that this isn't bait, but, given enough somewhat arbitrary slicing of the data (gender, age, loose race groups etc.), surely it'd be unlikely that there wouldn't be some biased slices? It's basically p-hacking: if you come up with enough ways of analysing data, you'll find something "significant".
- abbusfoflouotne 4y ago
  I agree with the general sentiment of this comment, but would add that the employee breakdown should match the applicant pool's demographics, not the demographic breakdown at large. For example, to expect a gender breakdown close to 50-50 would be unrealistic in software engineering roles since generally women are less represented in those roles. Though id love to see this shift (Women in stem!!)
  - Fogest 4y ago
    Some companies do go out of their ways however to try and match that 50:50, or to get "equal" representation in races. Which really just turns into being discriminatory hiring, but they'll call it "diverse hiring".
    - Akronymus 4y ago
      And those who fall into the category of being diverse will forever wonder if their ability got them the job, or id it was their diversity factor.
- devmunchies 4y ago
  Well this article is about Apple so you’ll want the Santa Clara county census. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/santaclaracountycalifornia https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/santaclaracountycalifornia Whites (non-Hispanic) are only 28.9% and Asians/Indians are 40.6%.
  - shapefrog 4y ago
    ~ 50% of apple employees are in CA, the rest are spread around the country. But sure, so long as there is a consistent measurement to work with. https://www.apple.com/job-creation/ https://www.apple.com/job-creation/
- ryan93 4y ago
  That is not a breakdown of who has like a PHD in electrical engineering. Maybe you are just being disingenuous to create engagement.
  - shapefrog 4y ago
    In 2019, nearly 70% of doctorate recipients who were U.S. citizens or permanent residents were white. 10% were Asian, 8% were Latino, 7% were Black and 3% identified as more than one race. Not all of them were in electrical engineering I guess.
    - ryan93 4y ago
      Those numbers are way different for elite science and engineering PHDs. Of course black women with PHDs in education don’t get intel jobs

shapefrog 4y ago

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045221 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045221 Anything not aligned with the breakdown here is just straight up racist hiring practices - 60% white, 20% hispanic / latino, 15% black, 5% asia (subcontinent & se asia).

misnome 4y ago
> Anything not aligned with the breakdown here is just straight up racist hiring practices So, every field and job market has exactly the same distribution as the entire country?
- shapefrog 4y ago
  Wouldnt it be nice. Or are you suggesting that some races / genders / etc are better at some things than others?
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    > Or are you suggesting that some races / genders / etc are better at some things than others? Aren't they? Women are worse at pretty much every sport than men, and NBA teams are very far away from average racial representation in general population. Even with non-physical activities, asians are overrepresented in many technical areas, and there were/are even lawsuits [0] about discriminating asians in favour of other races in colleges. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v._President_and_Fellows_of_Harvard_College https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v... > Arcidiacono suggested that the applicant's race plays a significant role in admissions decisions.[8] According to his testimony, if an Asian American applicant with certain characteristics (like scores, GPAs, and extracurricular activities, family background) would result in a 25% statistical likelihood of admission, the same applicant, if white, will have a 36% likelihood of admission.[8] Hispanic and Black applicants with the same characteristics will have a 77% and 95% predicted chance of admission, respectively.[8] So yeah... chances of getting a male asian programmer are relatively higher than their representation in the general population.
    - lovecg 4y ago
      The flaw with this argument is that all the possibly reasonable examples of differences you mention don’t imply that all other observed differences are benign and there’s nothing to be done.
      - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
        Sure... give all kids the same minimal starting point (schooling). Workplaces should just pick the best candidates, no matter the race or whatever other protected group status they look at. I live in a former socialist country (we had red stars, parades and a dictator), and considering race or any other non-merit based factor in eg. high school and college aplications would be seen as wrong (and in case of race/gender, racist/sexist). Same for jobs.
  - snet0 4y ago
    I'm not sure that this isn't bait, but, given enough somewhat arbitrary slicing of the data (gender, age, loose race groups etc.), surely it'd be unlikely that there wouldn't be some biased slices? It's basically p-hacking: if you come up with enough ways of analysing data, you'll find something "significant".
abbusfoflouotne 4y ago
I agree with the general sentiment of this comment, but would add that the employee breakdown should match the applicant pool's demographics, not the demographic breakdown at large. For example, to expect a gender breakdown close to 50-50 would be unrealistic in software engineering roles since generally women are less represented in those roles. Though id love to see this shift (Women in stem!!)
- Fogest 4y ago
  Some companies do go out of their ways however to try and match that 50:50, or to get "equal" representation in races. Which really just turns into being discriminatory hiring, but they'll call it "diverse hiring".
  - Akronymus 4y ago
    And those who fall into the category of being diverse will forever wonder if their ability got them the job, or id it was their diversity factor.
devmunchies 4y ago
Well this article is about Apple so you’ll want the Santa Clara county census. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/santaclaracountycalifornia https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/santaclaracountycalifornia Whites (non-Hispanic) are only 28.9% and Asians/Indians are 40.6%.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  ~ 50% of apple employees are in CA, the rest are spread around the country. But sure, so long as there is a consistent measurement to work with. https://www.apple.com/job-creation/ https://www.apple.com/job-creation/
ryan93 4y ago
That is not a breakdown of who has like a PHD in electrical engineering. Maybe you are just being disingenuous to create engagement.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  In 2019, nearly 70% of doctorate recipients who were U.S. citizens or permanent residents were white. 10% were Asian, 8% were Latino, 7% were Black and 3% identified as more than one race. Not all of them were in electrical engineering I guess.
  - ryan93 4y ago
    Those numbers are way different for elite science and engineering PHDs. Of course black women with PHDs in education don’t get intel jobs