Apple is the latest company to release a report on the diversity of its workforce, saying Tuesday that its numbers represent a work in progress to the diversity it hopes to achieve over time.
Apple’s Diversity Report: 70 percent Male, 55 percent White in U.S.
“As CEO, I’m not satisfied with the numbers on this page,” Apple chief executive Tim Cook said.
Apple
Currently seven in 10 of its workers globally are male. In the United States, 55 percent of Apple’s workers are white. Asian workers represent 15 percent of Apple’s workforce, with 11 percent identifying as Hispanic, 7 percent Black and 2 percent as more than one ethnicity. Nine percent of workers did not declare their ethnicity. It’s important to note those figures include Apple’s significant retail operations, something that makes its workforce distinct from other tech companies that have issued diversity reports.
Among its leadership ranks, which include store management, Whites make up nearly two-thirds and Asians represent 21 percent, with Black and Hispanic workers making up less than 10 percent.
“As CEO, I’m not satisfied with the numbers on this page,” Apple chief executive Tim Cook said in a letter that accompanies the report. “They’re not new to us and we’ve been working hard for quite some time to improve them. We are making progress, and we’re committed to being as innovative in advancing diversity as we are in developing our products.”
Apple stresses in the report that, to Apple, diversity is about more than gender and ethnicity. The company has been on the forefront of the debate on LGBT rights, with Tim Cook publishing an op-ed piece calling on Congress to pass legislation protecting gay and transgender workers.
Cook has also made several prominent hires that have boosted the number of women in the company’s upper ranks, hiring for EPA administrator Lisa Jackson and Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts and promoting Denise Young-Smith to run human resources. Apple also added Sue Wagner to its board of directors.
“We know we can do more, and we will,” Cook said.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
