Dive Brief:
-
Intel released its midyear diversity report Tuesday. The company says its overall, full representation gap fell from 2,300 people in 2014 to 800 today, a 65% improvement, according to an Intel press release.
-
While the company increased representation of women in the workforce by 0.3% since 2016, Intel's representation of African Americans has remained flat, according to the company. Of Intel's remaining gap to 2020, 60% stems from "the difference in representation and market availability" of African Americans in technical roles.
-
Intel has committed $300 million to diversity initiatives. Barbara Whye, chief diversity and inclusion officer says Intel’s goal is to achieve full representation by the end of 2018.
Dive Insight:
Many of the top tech companies release diversity statistics, but Intel is one of the only companies to produce an in-depth diversity report and statistics on a regular basis.
After statistics showed a general lack of diversity among their workers, several tech companies, including Microsoft, Intel and HP, vowed years ago to double their efforts at promoting more diverse workplaces. Despite those efforts, blacks and Latinos still make up just 5.3% of the workforce at the average technology company today, according to a report released by OpenMIC in February.
Intel's report is one of the first to show some actual progress being made."We’re seeing stable progress of female, Hispanic and Native American representation," Whye wrote in a press release. "However, we have more work to do in achieving full representation by African Americans in technical roles."
Still, there's a lot of money being spent to make what appears to be very little difference in improving diversity among tech workers.
Intel, coincidentally, timed the report well. The diversity-in-tech debate moved back into the spotlight in recent weeks following the release of a viral memo from James Damore, a former engineer at Google, who criticized the company's diversity initiatives.
