Although Apple published its own employee diversity report back in August, USA Today reports that the company has refused to make public the full data from its federal diversity filing. While companies are required to file this information annually in a form known as EEO-1, they are not legally obliged to make the data public.
Facebook, eBay, Google, Yahoo and LinkedIn are among the technology companies that have made public their EEO-1s […]
Stanford fellow Vivek Wadhwa, author of Innovating Women: The Changing Face of Technology, said that the companies have a responsibility to be accountable to the public for their hiring practices.
While Apple has not commented on the reason for its refusal, the piece notes that technology companies are critical of the EEO-1 form, complaining that its job classifications are a poor match for the tech industry. Intel’s chief diversity officer Rosalind Hudnell acknowledges this, but says that it is the best available measure at present.
This refusal shows that they have something to hide. If they didn’t have anything to hide, they would come clean.
Tim Cook has stated that he is not satisfied with Apple’s current diversity numbers, which show that Apple’s US workforce is 70% male and 55% white, and has a number of initiatives designed to address the issue. One of these is a number of $10k Inclusion and Diversity Scholarships for minorities in tech, another a film designed to emphasise the company’s commitment to diversity.
“I hope everyone eventually shares their EEO-1s,” Hudnell said. “If we are going to commit as an industry to drive improvement in a collective fashion, we cannot do it with inconsistent data.”
Tim Cook spoke of racial equality and gay rights in a speech in Alabama, and of course officially came out as gay shortly afterwards.
