Yahoo workforce at a glance: Mostly male, mostly white
Another big Internet company releases diversity statistics about the makeup of its workforce and the numbers recount a familiar tale that applies to the rest of Silicon Valley.
Yahoo on Tuesday released statistics about its workforce, and the employee makeup is -- like many of the other tech firms that have disclosed data -- mostly male and mostly white.
Globally, the company is 62 percent male, according to the data. In the United States, Yahoo's workforce is 50 percent white and 39 percent Asian. Black employees only made up 2 percent, and Hispanics made up 4 percent. Women only made up 15 percent of its technical workforce, and 23 percent of its leadership team.
Yahoo's disclosure follows other large tech companies voluntarily sharing their diversity data. The US government requires all major employers to file diversity statistics with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, but the employers themselves can decide whether to release the information. (The data is as of June.)
When Google released its figures last month, the search giant admitted it was disappointed with its record of hiring women, black, and Hispanic employees. Women only made up 30 percent of the company's total workforce. LinkedIn last week disclosed its own diversity data, and women made up 39 percent of the company.
The tech industry has been under fire recently for the lack of women and minorities working at Silicon Valley's largest companies. Twitter received criticism before it went public for not having any women on its board, though the company added former Pearson CEO Marjorie Scardino soon after.
Yahoo's spotlight on diversity comes as the company has tried to build out its team over the last two years. Under CEO Marissa Mayer, who took the helm in 2012, the lumbering tech giant has vowed to transform itself into a mobile company. To do that, the company has acquired almost 40 companies, partly to bolster its technical talent. And its mobile engineering team mushroomed from three dozen to more than 500.
"We're in the business of building products for hundreds of millions of users worldwide and that starts with having the best possible talent -- a Yahoo team that understands and reflects our diverse user base," Jackie Reses, Yahoo's chief development officer, wrote in Tuesday's report.
But Yahoo emphasized that the numbers aren't the full story. Reses pointed out Yahoo's perfect score in a study on workplaces and LGBT equality by the Human Rights Campaign.