Synopsis-
“Google has made some vocal commitments with the aim of improving the representation of underrepresented groups in leadership. They have pledged to achieve a 30% increase in the representation of these groups by 2025.”
Not long after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police in 2020, several major businesses, including Google, launched new initiatives to support their Black staff members.
Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google, wrote, “to build sustainable equity for Google’s Black+ community, and externally, to make our products and programs helpful in the moments that matter most to Black users.”
Google to Improve Underrepresented Groups
Google has made some vocal commitments with the aim of improving the representation of underrepresented groups in leadership. They have pledged to achieve a 30% increase in the representation of these groups by 2025. Additionally, they are looking to more than double the number of Black Google employees at nonsenior levels by the same year.
Google has also committed to addressing representation issues in areas such as hiring, retention, and promotions of these Google employees. They are working towards establishing better support for the mental and physical health of Black employees as well.
The action fit into a larger pattern that followed the Floyd assassination, which exposed power disparities in corporate America and the IT sector in particular and caused social upheaval. Businesses committed to spending millions of dollars to increase diversity inside their workforces and to assist outside organisations that focus on DEI, or diversity, equity, and inclusion.
But in 2023, some of those programs are in retreat.
According to data, there were 44% fewer DEI-related job posts by the middle of 2023 compared to the same period the previous year. The final complete month for which data was available was November 2023, when it decreased by 23% on an annual basis.
This stands in stark contrast to the years 2020–2021, when the number of postings increased by around 30%.
The ongoing cuts have affected smaller third-party organizations that relied on big tech clients for work, despite the continued growth of those tech giants.
