Speaking at Fortune’s Brainstorm Conference in Aspen, Colorado, Apple’s head of human resources has revealed that the company will record a 1 percent increase in its proportion of black employees in 2015. “We were pleasantly surprised to realize that we did have some movement,” said Denise Young Smith.
Apple will release its next diversity report this summer, showing increases for both women and racial minorities, Smith continued. She says that diversity in hiring is key to Apple’s talent strategy.
Apple has been big on workforce diversity as part of its focus on equality.
Last year, Apple reported that 7 percent of its U.S. workforce is black, 55 percent is white, 15 percent is Asian, and 11 percent is Hispanic. The remainder failed to identify themselves with a particular ethnicity. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, around 13 percent of the U.S. population is black, while 2.4 percent identify as two or more races.
“The potential for bias exists all the time,” Denise Smith commented. “We’re working really hard to start to bring more of that thinking and more of those conversations into Apple.”
In the past, advocacy groups have argued that Silicon Valley tends to hire a disproportionately white, male workforce.
Source: Bloomberg
