Apple’s workforce became a little bit more diverse in 2016 according to the company’s annual Inclusion and Diversity report that was published today, revealing that minorities made up 54 percent of new U.S. hires.
The company is also hiring more women than ever and says it is finally paying women equal wages, and will continue to analyze the salaries, bonuses and annual stock grants of all employees worldwide to solve the gender pay gap once and for all.
Here’s part of the report:
“We’ve achieved pay equity in the United States for similar roles and performance. Women earn one dollar for every dollar male employees earn. And underrepresented minorities earn one dollar for every dollar white employees earn.”
Women now make up 32 percent of Apple’s overall workforce, a slight increase from the 31 percent mark the company set last year. Apple increased its global female new hires by 2 percent, rising to 37 percent, while under represented minorities made up 27 percent of new hires.
“Diversity is more than any one gender, race or ethnicity,” said Denise Young Smith, Apple’s VP of human resources. “It’s richly representative of all people, all backgrounds, and all perspectives. It is the entire human experience.”
Despite the small gains, Apple leadership remains an overwhelmingly 72 percent white. As for retail operations, 54 percent of new hires were minorities in 2016, while the company’s tech work force is 55 percent white and 27 percent Asian.
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
3 responses to “Apple says its gender pay gap has been fixed”
I think it’s great that Apple is paying its female staff and minorities the same as its white employees, however, I’m surprised this wasn’t happening already. People should be hired because of their capabilities, not their gender or race. They should be paid according to their abilities as well. A highly productive executive who gets a lot done and creates lots of income for the company should be paid higher than an executive who is less productive. Sales staff who sell lots of products and are good with customers should get commensurate bonuses because of his/her sales. Likewise, sales staff who only go through the motions and don’t do well should just get base pay.
Putting attention on “hiring more women” and “hiring more minorities” is operating in a politically correct fashion which loses site of the main goal of any company, which is “hiring capable staff who are an asset to the company because they do their jobs well.” If a company’s Human Resources hires according to capability, and then makes sure its staff is trained and actually do their jobs well, the company will prosper. If HR gets derailed because of orders to hire more women/blacks/hispanics/asians/etc.–that becomes the focus rather than capability. Hire for capability and completely disregard the person’s sex, ethnicity, religion or any other factor.
Shocking. Why has it taken so long ? More questions need to be asked.
Hiring practices that force HR to give preference to women and minority ethnicities CREATE a racist and sexist mindset:
“I’m sorry Mr. Jones but Apple can’t hire you. You’re absolutely perfect for the job opening we have, but unfortunately you’re white and male, and we can’t allow that. If you were female and black, Hispanic or Asian, we’d hire you immediately! You see, we’ve been accused of being racially and sexually prejudiced because many of our staff and executives are white males, so we’re not hiring them any more until we fill up our quotas of women and minorities.”