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Apple releases diversity numbers

• gopher1 12y ago
  No age data?
  • thevardanian 12y ago
    Aren't you funny.
    • caio1982 12y ago
      I think I get it but in some countries age is not a privacy issue, business-wise. Actually, in some places (like Brazil) people expect you to disclose it, eventually. There's not much privacy protection about it like there is in US.
      • thenipper 12y ago
        The weirdest is other countries where it'll be on the CV. Along with gender, ethnicity, religion, marital status, number of children(including their ages and names sometime) and a photo. Its really uncomfortable since we're not supposed to use any of that.
        • caio1982 12y ago
          It used to be like that in Brazil until very recently... yeah... not only weird but also very embarrassing and probably illegal these days.
        • guard-of-terra 12y ago
          Should you withhold information from your CV since some of it is known by you to not being supposed to be used by the reader of said CV? Because CV without all what you listed is no longer a CV and is closer to a catalog listing. Should you also replace your name with some alphanumeric code? Because name can tell you a lot to discriminate on.
          • thenipper 12y ago
            No not necessarily, though I wouldn't use a CV to apply to a job in the States or that is with a primarily US based organization. I just ignore the info when it comes up, it just catches me by surprise sometime. I've actual lobbied to anonymize all applications as much as possible. Thankfully for some positions I have to review resumes for I'm unfamiliar with the cultural norms of what names are female and what are male. So in that way they are anonymized!
      • gopher1 12y ago
        This is not a privacy issue. As with age, people are not expected to state their race in an interview, nor are employers allowed to discriminate based on race, yet this diversity report includes anonymized racial data. They could have easily included anonymized age data.
• Chronic29 12y ago
  30% seems low for a large tech company.
• gxs 12y ago
  It's often companies with retail outlets that are willing to provide this data - I suspect a lot of the diversity comes from the people that work at retail Apple stores. In a way, it is similar to how the government operates - the diversity of people who call the shots is very different than the diversity of people in DMV or SSA offices, but overall it gives the impression that things are diverse.
  • 67726e 12y ago
    Might be a part of it at least, but what percentage of employees are retail and what are office? Purely anecdotal, but the Apple store here in Charleston, SC is pretty damned white.
  • dublinben 12y ago
    If their "tech" and "non-tech" categories are what they sound like, then you're right. Their "tech" category is still 80% male, and 54% + 23% white plus Asian. For such a hip company, they look just as bad as their competitors.
    • TheHypnotist 12y ago
      Serious Question(s): How does this make them look bad? Is it unfair to think that this happens to be because of the demographic of people interested and qualified in "tech" positions? Or should we genuinely think these numbers are lopsided for some nefarious reasons? Edit: Un-Edited the Edit.
  • beachstartup 12y ago
    there's also a 'leadership' chart: White 64% Asian 21% Hispanic 6% Black 3% Undeclared 6%
• batmansbelt 12y ago
  70% male! Holy shit. That's shameful.
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• wyager 12y ago
  If these stats are for the US, it means that whites are about 17% underrepresented at Apple.
  • jiggy2011 12y ago
    That depends. The data segregates into "tech" and "non-tech", but doesn't seem to define these terms well. If tech is taken to mean mostly programmers and engineers then you would expect these to be clustered around Cupertino, in which case (based on pure demographics) you would expect more hispanics and less whites. If you are including people like geniuses at retail stores then perhaps it would break down differently depending on how these stores are distributed around the US.
    • wyager 12y ago
      That's true, but a 17% difference from expected seems quite large. And if we're talking about people working at Cupertino, the pool of tech workers is significantly more white and asian than the average U.S. population, and I would think most of the Apple employees at Cupertino are pulled from that population. Apple does have a substantially higher percentage of asians than would be expected from the entire U.S. population (15% vs 5%), probably due to the relatively large number of asian tech workers, but I would think the same effect would lead to a larger-than-expected percentage of white employees.
• unfunco 12y ago
  Some people might criticise these numbers, particularly the 70% male ratio. However, to really determine whether a company is being as diverse and open to equality as possible, the same measurements should be applied to the applicants as well as the employees. If seven out of ten applicants are male then the 70% male ratio doesn't indicate a bias. It might mean that the company isn't as attractive to female applicants, but then again, neither is the discipline behind many of their products (at the moment.)
  • weaksauce 12y ago
    I think you'd have to look at qualified candidates in that percentage. Only then would you be able to look at the percentages directly.
  • Someone 12y ago
    You are right; a bare 70% number does not say anything without further analysis. It is hard to separate the effects of lower attractiveness of their jobs to women, the acceptance of women in their workplace, and women's perception of that acceptance. And of course (and as you know) the reverse is not true, either. The fraction of non-Caucasian members in the KKK probably reflects the fraction of non-Caucasian applicants they get, but that does not imply that hey do not have a bias.
  • aristus 12y ago
    Please, stop repeating this tiresome excuse. Absolving a company and blaming the pipeline does not help actually solve the problem. 1) There is a "filter" problem, eg bias in interviewing. This is what you are talking about. 2) There is the "pipeline" problem, eg universities and recruiting practices. 3) There is the self-selection problem, eg women / minorities going into other fields because they don't want to deal with the horseshit. ...plus many others, including how the few women are treated after they get the job. The only cure is sunlight. You optimize what you measure. If we can get tech companies to publish these numbers every year, then maybe they'll start doing something about it.
    • Strang 12y ago
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• detcader 12y ago
  People need to learn the difference between descriptive and prescriptive ideas. Observating that Apple isn't diverse in a certain way is not the same as saying Apple is the problem. In fact I don't think most people believe that Apple's hiring practices, or any tech company's in particular, is the real issue for any metric.
• teamhappy 12y ago
  I'll never understand why anyone would care about the absolute numbers. Look at the relative numbers (relative to applications) and try to find any kind of bias (including preferential treatment for minorities). No bias? Great. Some bias? Not great. Pretty simple really. Another thing I don't get about absolute numbers is that it seems desirable to have an outcome proportional to society (eg. 0.2% "Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander"). Given the fact that we're all equal; I don't see why that would be any better/worse/whatever.
  • mmatants 12y ago
    There is no intrinsic reason why these numbers should not be proportional to society in the long run, that's why we compare the ratios. Not even considering issues of equality and access, diversity as a thing in and of itself is at least good business. Especially in positions of power and decision-making. And that is at least one reason to peer at the discrepancies with open-minded curiosity - not to start a witch hunt, but to make smart shifts towards better business.
    • teamhappy 12y ago
      "There is no intrinsic reason why these numbers should not be proportional to society in the long run, that's why we compare the ratios." That's true. Roughly proportional anyway. But there's still gonna be minorities inside that group. I guess what I tried to say earlier is that making sure minoritie's voices are heard is (IMHO) more important than making sure they're represented proportionally to society. Simply because there's always gonna be a minority. "[...] diversity as a thing in and of itself is at least good business. Especially in positions of power and decision-making." Don't forget that huge groups like races, genders, etc. are incredibly diverse already. I guess a stereotypical example would be hiring a white man might diversify your staff more than hiring a black women if that man happens to be a vegan (or whatever). Or take the Fox News staff as an example if you like (they sure look diverse on mute). No argument on the second part though. Any representational entity (management, senate, etc.) should represent society accurately. The rest of your post is a no-brainer. Talking to seemingly different people is always a good idea :)
    • 12y ago
• oh_sigh 12y ago
  Why are the race and ethnicity numbers U.S. based, but the gender numbers are global?
  • guard-of-terra 12y ago
    Most of the world does not operate on rigid and sometimes funny ("hispanic", come on) set of "races" like US do. Rather, people have more dynamic nationalities and ethnicities which are harder to classify.
    • oh_sigh 12y ago
      My question was really going the other way - why don't they release their gender numbers for the US only? My conspiratorial feeling is because they are even more male dominated in the US than globally.
  • coldcode 12y ago
    The US has bizarre classifications that make no sense anywhere else. Why are people from Spain Hispanic but not from Portugal, why are Mexicans Hispanic even if they are descended from Aztec people. The idea that all Asians are the same is equally insane. Even White is a stupid concept that has no meaning. If I came from Spain I'm hispanic but if I came from just over the border in France I'm white. If I come from South Africa and move to the US I'm either African-American or White depending on my ancestry even if it goes back 2 centuries. It's a dumb concept that mostly makes sense to anyone. Yet it persists in these strange classifications that have no basis in any scientific system.
    • foolrush 12y ago
      “Yet it persists in these strange classifications that have no basis in any scientific system.” It is likely even woven into scientific systems. This is precisely what Foucalt referenced in his “The Order of Things.”
• yummyfajitas 12y ago
  Data like this suggests that a common argument employed by diversity activists is false. Specifically, if companies like Apple and Facebook manage to create products that are wildly popular with women, it suggests that it isn't necessary to have female employees to make products for women. (Repeat for race/nationality - I don't think a single African person works for Whatsapp. I've also never met an African woman in the past year who doesn't use it daily.)
  • Gracana 12y ago
    The fact that there are success stories doesn't make the argument false.
    • yummyfajitas 12y ago
      If only I recognized this. Then I'd have said "suggest" rather than "prove beyond a shadow of a doubt".
    • im3w1l 12y ago
      A single counter example is enough to prove that something isn't necessary.
      • ceejayoz 12y ago
        Is anyone actually arguing it's strictly necessary, though? Diverse viewpoints can help meeting the needs of diverse populations, but it's obviously possible to make a product that appeals to other demographics than your own.
      • Gracana 12y ago
        For a very pedantic/strict interpretation of "necessary." I don't think anyone would argue that it is an absolute necessity to employ women to successfully market a product to women.
  • ceejayoz 12y ago
    > it suggests that it isn't necessary to have female employees to make products for women Congratulations on murdering that strawman.
• CucumberLime 12y ago
  Age?
• kazinator 12y ago
  What is the meaning of "white" in that pie chart? Does a pale-skinned person from Jordan or Lebanon count as white? If not, then what category? "Other"? What is "hispanic"? Is a white person of Spanish descent "hispanic" or "white"? Wikipedia says that this is "is an ethnonym that denotes a relationship to Spain". So a Greek or Turk would count as "white", but a Spaniard as "hispanic"? Pop quiz: Ricardo Montalbán: white or hispanic? The pie chart seems to be mixing "ethnonyms" with skin colors. Then there is "Asian"; what exactly is that, and does it lump together the people of Indians and of Korea? About "white": suppose that 70% of applicants are white, but they are largely Slavic, from central and eastern Europe; and suppose that the 70% of the employed whites are Germanic whites. Nope, no discrimination there! Maybe the "white" category is so large because it includes many ethnic groups: someone from Iceland could qualify, as well as someone from Israel. Since the Arabic and East Indian people are "caucasoid", any pale-skinned people from those regions can represent themselves as white. A person with albinism of Indian descent is very difficult to distinguish from a European, if at all. (Do a Google image search for "indian albino").
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  • foolrush 12y ago
    If I could give you a thousand upvotes I would. This is exactly part of the seductive nature of “data” in EuroWestern culture. Knowledge as power, but not in the rather trivial sense of education being empowering, but in the crafting of knowledge. As cited below, well explored by Mr. Foucault.
  • jiggy2011 12y ago
    If I was cynical I might consider this to be a feature, simply release another set of statistics a year later with the demographics sliced a little differently and declare victory.
  • tytytytyty 12y ago
    A well thought out and written piece that butts heads with the hyper-sensitive "tech" marketers/bloggers that infect HN like a plague gets downvoted. News at 11.