Facebook Mirrors Tech Industry’s Lack of Diversity; New York Times, 6/25/14

Vindu Goel, New York Times; Facebook Mirrors Tech Industry’s Lack of Diversity:

"“As these numbers show, we have more work to do — a lot more,” Facebook’s global head of diversity, Maxine Williams, wrote in the blog post announcing the data. “Diversity is something that we’re treating as everyone’s responsibility at Facebook, and the challenge of finding qualified but underrepresented candidates is one that we’re addressing as part of a strategic effort across Facebook. Since our strategic diversity team launched last year, we’re already seeing improved new hire figures and lower attrition rates for underrepresented groups.”

Facebook’s disclosure follows similar reports recently released by other major Internet companies, including Google, Yahoo and LinkedIn. Older Silicon Valley companies, such as Intel, Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard, have also released their employment diversity data...

While tech companies say their diversity challenges are largely due to the lack of women and minorities getting science and engineering degrees, Rev. Jackson said the industry’s diversity data show that it has done a poor job of recruiting black and Latino workers even for nontechnical jobs such as lawyers and marketers."