Apple, Google, Yahoo, others refuse to disclose gender and racial makeup of their workforce

[Newsjock]

Source: San Jose Mercury News

Google, the company that wants to make the world's information accessible, says the race and gender of its work force is a trade secret that cannot be released.

So do Apple, Yahoo, Oracle and Applied Materials. These five companies waged an 18-month Freedom of Information battle with the Mercury News, convincing federal regulators who collect the data that its release would cause "commercial harm" by potentially revealing the companies' business strategy to competitors. A sixth company, Hewlett-Packard, fought the release and lost.

But many of their industry peers see the issue differently. The Mercury News initially set out to obtain race and gender data on the valley's 15 largest companies, and nine — including Intel, Cisco Systems, eBay, AMD, Sanmina and Sun Microsystems — agreed to allow the U.S. Department of Labor to provide it.

Experts in the area of equal employment law scoffed at the idea that public disclosure of race and gender data — for example, the number of black men or Asian women in job categories such as "professionals," "officials & managers" and "service workers" — could really allow competitors to discern a big tech company's business strategy. A bigger issue, they said, is the social cost of allowing large, influential corporations to hide their race and gender data.

... John Sims, a law professor at the University of the Pacific and an expert in FOIA law, called the objections of Google, Apple and other companies "absurd."

Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_14382477

[TwilightGardener]

1. Interesting. Certainly they're hiding something--probably damaging to their

companies' images, if stats were released. Or, they're afraid they'll be forced to hire groups of people they don't want to hire.

[Spider Jerusalem]

5. Tech? Overwhelmingly male, and overwhelmingly white.

Asian males (of East Asian and Indian origin) would probably represent the largest minority group in employment at tech firms. I doubt this would REALLY come as a surprise to anyone.

[The Northerner]

2. Why's this a big deal?

If the companies want to hire whomever on merit they should.

That's the only way to profit & succeed.

[Chulanowa]

4. It's not; So one wonders why they're fighting it?

There are laws against race- and gender-based discriminatory hiring practices, though.

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

6. Exactly

They are afraid of being painted with some kind of discriminatory brush.

That said, and being familiar with the insides of a couple of these companies, I don't think it is discrimination per se. For a lot of high-tech businesses you are pulling from an exceedingly biased pool before they ever show up for the interview. I know, for example, that most of my trangender and transexual acquaintances either work for Google or Apple. If there is some kind of evil discrimination going on, it is weirdly selective.

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

3. Let's be honest, its all pasty white males.

The only tech companies I've ever been inside -- and I've been inside many -- that were not mostly pasty white males, were tech companies that were predominantly Asian males. And most are a mix of Caucasian and Asian males. That right there covers 99% of all high-tech companies.

I can see why it would happen though. When you try to hire engineers, 95% of the applicants are Caucasian or Asian males...

[comtec]

7. maybe it shows how many indians they are abusing

that is from and on the sub continent?
are off-shore employees included in this data?

[anonymous171]

8. I'm sure if they weren't tech companies DU might have more objections.

Supposedly educated rich people and their workforce would never be racist.

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

9. The environments are pretty multicultural.

They just happen to be within a couple racial groups. I worked in mostly white engineering groups at major Silicon Valley companies where, while white, almost the entire team were foreigners from all over the world. Out of a dozen people, a whopping two were American, and one of those Americans was female. But that group was still almost entirely white. There is no evidence that it is an American thing per se.

In fact, compared to Europe and Asia, the US tech companies are pretty multiethnic but that might be because the US has more immigration than Europe and Asia.