RACE DOES NOT EXIST AND WE ARE ALL THE SAME:
BUT WE NEED LESS WHITE MEN AND MORE "DIVERSITY"
Apple this week said its hiring efforts over the past year included its largest number of minority hires in a 12-month period. "In the past year we hired over 11,000 women globally, which is 65 percent more than in the previous year," CEO Tim Cook wrote on Apple's website. "In the United States, we hired more than 2,200 Black employees—a 50 percent increase over last year—and 2,700 Hispanic employees, a 66 percent increase."
Overall, that's "the largest group of employees we've ever hired from underrepresented groups in a single year," Cook said, while nearly 50 percent of Apple's new hires in the first six months of 2015 were women, Black, Hispanic, or Native American.
"Some people will read this page and see our progress. Others will recognize how much farther we have to go. We see both," Cook said.
The company's hires nudged its overall demographic percentages slightly, but not much. Apple is still 54 percent white, down from 55 percent a year ago. The number of Asian employees increased from 15 percent to 18 percent. Hispanic workers are still at 11 percent, while the percentage of black employees increased from 7 to 8 percent.
Apple first provided diversity stats a year ago. In March, it pledged to partner with non-profit organizations for a $50 million, multi-year effort to entice more women, minorities, and veterans to enter the field.
A number of companies have revealed their diversity stats in the past year, an effort that was prompted by a Pinterest engineer's call for diversity. Tracy Chou penned a blog post asking Silicon Valley to publish their employee stats, and the industry responded.
Pinterest is not immune to diversity challenges, though. Last month, the firm said it too has some work to do. About 42 percent of the company's employees are women, up from 40 percent. About 36 percent of engineering interns are women, up from 32 percent, while female engineers hired out of school jumped from 28 percent to 33 percent.
Intel, meanwhile, is another tech giant that has committed millions to improving diversity—$300 million over the next five years, to be exact. Earlier this month, Intel said it will also pay higher referral rates to employees who refer female candidates.
In Intel's latest diversity report, it shows improvements similar to those at Apple. The percentage of women grew from 23.5 percent in December to 24.1 percent in July, while those in leadership roles increased from 15.4 percent to 17.1 percent.
The percentage of black employees was up slightly from 3.4 percent to 3.5 percent, while Hispanic and Native American workers remained at 8.3 and 0.5 percent, respectively. The percentage of underrepresented minorities in leadership roles went from 4.8 percent to 6 percent, Intel said.
