Following other major Silicon Valley players, Twitter has released its own diversity report, which shows the largest imbalance so far: 90pc of the microblogging site’s tech staff are male.
With Google, Facebook, Yahoo! and LinkedIn all releasing their own reports, Twitter’s inclusion puts it ahead of these companies in terms of gender imbalance in tech roles within the company. Google, for example, reveals 83pc of its tech staff are male.
Twitter’s overall gender balance between tech, non-tech and leadership, however, shows a similar pattern. Seventy per cent of all roles in the company are being held by males, and this even draws parity with Google in terms of those in leadership positions, with only 21pc being made up of females.
Industry marked by imbalance
Twitter said it is aware of the problems that exist in the company with regard to gender imbalance, but have attributed this to a systematic problem within Silicon Valley.
“We are keenly aware that Twitter is part of an industry that is marked by dramatic imbalances in diversity — and we are no exception.
“By becoming more transparent with our employee data, open in dialogue throughout the company and rigorous in our recruiting, hiring and promotion practices, we are making diversity an important business issue for ourselves.”
Twitter has listed a number of initiatives that have been started to address the gender imbalance, including WomEng (women in engineering), TwUX (Twitter women in design), TwitterOpen (LGBTQ folks) and Alas (Latino employees).
Race diversity is another contentious issue in Silicon Valley and, with the racial background focusing only on its US employees, Twitter shows it has similar statistics to its neighbours. Those who are white make up 58pc of tech roles, followed by 34pc Asian, while a combination including African-American, Native American and Hispanic make up just 8pc.
Twitter homepage image via Shutterstock
