Photo courtesy of NCLR.org and elPadawan.com
Silicon Valley has a well-publicized diversity problem. But a new study says that when minorities are hired at tech companies, they’re paid less than whites for doing the same job. The research, conducted by the American Institute for Economic Research, assessed the most influential technology companies and examined their workforces, taking into account race, education, occupation, age, geography, gender and citizenship status.
“What this tells us is that race and ethnicity matter, and they matter a lot,” Nicole Kreisberg, the senior research analyst on the project, told USA Today. “Simply increasing diversity is not enough. We also have to talk about money.”
Facebook, Apple, Yahoo, Google and a number of other major tech companies have released diversity reports showing that technology offices throughout the Bay Area are overwhelmingly staffed by white males. Seventy percent of Google’s workforce is male, for example, while Intel’s male-to-female ratio is 3:1.
These entrepreneurial companies that have changed the world can’t be making personnel decisions based solely on race and gender, though, can they? Well, not on purpose, Freada Kapor Klein, co-chair for the Kapor Center for Social Impact, told USA Today, but it’s happening nonetheless.
“At every point in the hiring process, hidden bias trickles in,” she said. “A drop at the stage of reviewing names on resumes, a few more drops at the stage of different gender and race styles of presentation during interviews, and a steadier stream when it comes to who is expected to negotiate their salary and who isn’t.”
To read full article: http://www.ibtimes.com/tech-industry-pays-hispanic-black-asian-employees-less-whites-study-says-1703008
