Facebook staff diversity little changed over past year

[SAN FRANCISCO] Facebook Inc released new diversity data Friday that showed the number of women and minorities has remained little changed over the past year.

The number of women increased only 1 percentage point, from 31 per cent to 32 per cent. The number of black people, Hispanics and people of two or more races remained unchanged at 2 per cent, 4 per cent and 3 per cent, respectively.

Diversity among the social network's tech workers was far less even, with 84 per cent men and 16 per cent women. Among non-tech workers, 48 per cent are men and 52 per cent women.

Facebook's senior leadership is still overwhelmingly white and male. Women comprise only 23 per cent of the senior leadership while men comprise 77 per cent, unchanged from last year.

More Asian people made up senior leadership with 21 per cent this year, compared to 19 per cent last year, but the number of senior-level Hispanics decreased from 4 per cent to 3 per cent.

In a blog post, Facebook listed several initiatives to increase its diversity. They included a Facebook University training programme, which invites college freshmen from underrepresented groups to spend a summer working alongside Facebook mentors, and a training course geared toward conversations about stereotypes and bias.

REUTERS