Google's Employee Demographics: Mostly White, Mostly Male

Google released demographic data on its nearly 50,000 employees for the first time Wednesday.

The gist: Google employees are predominantly men (70%) and predominantly white (61%).
"Google is not where we want to be when it comes to diversity," Laszlo Bock, Google's senior vice-president of people operations, wrote in a blog post, "And it’s hard to address these kinds of challenges if you’re not prepared to discuss them openly, and with the facts."

The gender data shared is global for all Google's 50,000 employees, while the ethnicity data is strictly for the company's U.S. employees. Overall, 70% of Google employees are male, and 91% of U.S. employees are either white or Asian. Google's leadership is even less diverse: 79% of Google's leadership is male, while 72% of its leadership is white.

The data reinforces a gender stereotype common among Silicon Valley tech companies, where men tend to dominate the tech industry; this is evident even within Google. However, non-tech jobs at the company are more diverse: Men make up 52% of non-tech jobs within Google, compared to 83% of Google's tech positions.

To Google's credit, the company is doing something that few other tech companies are willing to do: publicize demographics that paint a raw picture of the current tech-employment landscape. Google has also given $40 million to "organizations working to bring computer-science education to women and girls," Bock wrote. It's a start, but Bock added that the company still has a long way to go.

"We’re the first to admit that Google is miles from where we want to be — and that being totally clear about the extent of the problem is a really important part of the solution," he said.