Inside Amazon’s workforce diversity report

Inside Amazon’s workforce diversity report

Roughly 63 percent of employees are males, while 60 percent of the company is white.

Amazon.com celebrated Halloween by releasing its first-ever workplace diversity report, and the numbers are indeed a bit spooky. According to an article from Forbes, the company’s diversity report is actually more of a lack-of-diversity report: Amazon is largely staffed by white males.

The employment numbers for the internet retail company are impressive, at least, for their scope. Around the world, Amazon employs 88,400 people around the world. Less impressive is the way that figure is split up into different genders and races. Roughly 63 percent of employees are males, while 60 percent of the company is white.

The numbers do not get any more flattering if you look only at managerial positions. On the contrary, the percentages for white males increase in those higher up positions, with 75 percent of Amazon managers being male, and 71 percent of them being white.

What do the numbers look like from the other side of the racial coin? Of Amazon’s 88,400 employees, the diversity report states that about 15 percent of them are black, 13 percent are Asian, and 9 percent are hispanic. In terms of managerial positions, 4 percent are filled by blacks and another 4 percent by hispanics. Surprisingly, 18 percent of Amazon managerial roles are filled by employees of Asian race.

Arguably most shocking is how far Amazon is from having equality between the genders. Only 37 percent of the workforce is female, and only a quarter of the company’s managerial positions are filled by women.

Not that Amazon is lagging behind other tech companies in terms of diversity. Google and Facebook both revealed their own diversity figures recently, and neither corporation had numbers that were better than Amazon. Google is split 70/30 between male and female employees, with 61 percent of the company white. Facebook, meanwhile, is only minutely better, with a workforce that is 69 percent male and 57 percent white.

What does all of this prove? For starters, it gives very actualized evidence that the tech industry has a long way to go in terms of diversity, equality, and inclusiveness. In their report, Amazon says that the problem arises from a lack of encouragement in schools for women, blacks, and hispanics to study science, technology, math, and engineering.

Amazon wants to change this trend by supporting learning in those subjects across all races and genders. On the other hand, Reverend Jesse Jackson and his Rainbow Push campaign want Amazon and other tech companies to make a conscious effort to hire or promote more minority groups. Only then, Rainbow Push says, will these companies be able to “resemble the America [they] depend upon for talent and customers.”

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