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Apple makes progress on racial diversity of its workforce

Written by Joseph Nordqvist

Published: 00:52, January 20, 2016

Apple has made progress on the racial diversity of its U.S. workforce.

The tech giant unveiled new information about the demographics of its workforce in the US in a recent report, which showed that the number of white employees dropped from 61.3% in 2014 to 59.5% in 2015.

Only 8.6% of the company’s workforce is African American, but that is a slight increase from 8% in 2014.

The percentage of Asian employees climbed up from 16.3% in 2014 to 17.4% in 2015.

Hispanics accounted for 11.7% of the company’s workforce, up from 11.5%.

There was also a slight increase in the number of female employees. Women accounted for 30% of the company’s workforce in the US in 2015, up from 28.7% in 2014.

However, the number of female managers dropped from 27.7% to 27.1%.

Apple_Demographics_US_Workforce
Source: Apple

Apple still lags far behind its rivals Google and Microsoft when it comes to hiring workers from underrepresented backgrounds.

The company’s leadership is its least diverse section; 72% of the tech giant’s executives are male and 62% are white.

Of 18 Apple senior level executives, only three are women and one is black. Five of its eight board members are white men.

The report represents a snapshot of the company’s US workforce in August 2015.

However, Apple says that the numbers are “not how we measure our progress.”

CEO Tim Cook said: “We know there is a lot more work to be done.”

Apple had 72,494 U.S. employees as of August, up 21.1 percent from the previous year.

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