Technology

Facebook’s Hiring Goals Will Make Its Growing Seattle-Area Workforce Far More Diverse

The tech giant wants to hire far more women, African-Americans and Hispanics

By Bill Conroy July 11, 2019

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Facebook, which has been on a major hiring spree in the Seattle area over the past year, says it plans to double the number of women in its workforce globally and to also double the number of African American and Hispanic employees in its U.S. workforce over the next five years, according to its global chief diversity officer.

The ambitious plan was announced in conjunction with the release of the companys sixth annual diversity report. This years report shows that Facebooks global workforce, like many companies in the tech world, is predominately male, at 63.1%. Thats a slight improvement from 2018, when males represented 63.7% of the companys global workforce.

Facebook also says its U.S. workforce is 44.2% white and 43% Asian, while Hispanics represent only 5.2% of its American workforce and African-Americans account for 3.8%. In 2018, white employees represented 46.6% of Facebooks U.S. workforce; Asians accounted for 41.4%; Hispanics, 4.9%; and African-Americans, 3.5%.

We envision a company where in the next five years, at least 50% of our workforce will be women, people who are Black, Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islanders, people with two or more ethnicities, people with disabilities, and veterans, says Maxine Williams, Facebooks global chief diversity officer. In doing this, we aim to double our number of women globally and Black and Hispanic employees in the US. It will be a company that reflects and better serves the people on our platforms, services and products.

Williams adds that Facebooks commitment to and support of the LGBTQ+ community is unwavering, pointing out that 8% of its U.S.-based workforce identifies as LGBTQ+, based on a voluntary survey.

As of late last year, according to GeekWire, Menlo Park, California-based Facebook employed some 3,000 people in the Seattle area, with hundreds of jobs still to be filled. Worldwide, Facebook employed 37,300 full-time workers as of this past April, according to the company.

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