Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), which traded up 1.16% in mid-afternoon, but is up more than 21% this year, appears to perform better in workforce diversity than most of its Silicon Valley peers Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) or Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), for instance. Clayton Banks, the co-founder of Silicon Harlem, was on Yahoo! Finance and disused the workforce diversity issues in the Silicon Valley.
According to the workplace details released by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), the company said it has 80% of its employees in the U.S. as white, 12% are African-American or Asian, while 16% are Hispanic. Overall, Apple’s workforce is 55% white and 15% Asian. At Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL), 61% of employees are White, 30% Asian, 3% Hispanic and 2% Black. That almost matches with Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s 57% of white employees, 34% Asian, 4% Hispanic, and 2% Black.
According to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s CEO Tim Cook, their workforce diversity is not satisfactory to them.
Concerning tech workforce diversity, Banks said there are many problems with it, but the startup of tech companies is one of the reasons for the disparity in the workforce numbers in terms of races. He said that startups mostly absorb friend and family and that happens when people starting the company did not get exposed to diversity earlier on in their life.
“But I’ll just quickly say that when you are starting up a company, you are generally starting up with your friends and family, and your friends and family look a lot like you,” he said during the interview.
He also talked about networks and how some people may find it easy to get a job, which eventually leads to the workforce racial disparity.
“In some cases, those who are in positions to start their own companies aren’t getting the investment capital. Perhaps it’s based on who they know, which is what we learned growing up,” he noted.
With civil rights activists training their eyes on Silicon Valley tech companies concerning workforce diversity, tech giants of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) may have to do more to avoid negative sentiments that lack of proper workforce diversity may bring to them businesses.
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