Google's diversity efforts show scant progress

SAN FRANCISCO ( Reuters)- Alphabet's Google on Thursday released data on its twoyear-old initiative to create a more diverse U.S. workforce, saying it had more black, Latino and female employees but still lagged its goal of mirroring the population.

The company released its diversity figures for the first time in 2014 and sparked a conversation among Silicon Valley tech companies that led many of its closest competitors to follow suit.

Google's overall percentage of non- white, non- Asian employees in the United States did not move at all in 2015 from the year before, remaining at 2 percent for African Americans, 3 percent for Hispanics, 3 percent for multiracial individuals and less than 1 percent for Native American and Pacific Islanders, according to the company.

Women made up 31 percent of Google's overall workforce in 2015, up 1 percent from 2014, and 21 percent of technical hires for the year, up from 19 percent in 2014.

White employees made up 59 percent of its U. S. workforce and Asians accounted for 32 percent. Google had about 38,670 workers in the United States in 2015, according to its report to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission based on August 2015 data.

While its percentages of minority employees did not change, the report said in 2015 Google had 880 black employees, up from 628 in 2014 and 1,782 Hispanic employees, up from 1,428 the previous year. There were 712 multiracial individuals, up from 636, and 56 American Indian or Alaska natives, up from 44 the previous year.