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Apple Announces Equal Pay for Women and Minorities
08/10/2016   Lauren Longo | Care2 Causes
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Apple recently announced the company has achieved equal pay for “similar roles and performance” across race and gender in the United States. According to their diversity report, women and underrepresented minorities now earn the same pay as their typically more privileged counterparts.

 

Furthermore, Apple says they’re analyzing salaries, bonuses and other forms of income outside the U.S. to close the pay gap at their branches worldwide.

 

While Apple CEO Tim Cook has advocated for diversity, internal opposition challenged previous attempts to create a more diverse workforce. In January, the mostly white male board and senior management rejected a proposal to increase diversity among the board and senior management. They called the proposal “unduly burdensome and not necessary.”

 

It’s unclear whether they also find the patriarchy and racism burdensome and unnecessary.

 

Despite the views of the board, Apple has made progress over the last few years to diversify its workforce. Since 2014, there’s been a 6 percent increase in both female and underrepresented minorities among new hires.

 

The company still has a long way to go; 68 percent of their employees worldwide are male and 56 percent of U.S. employees are white.

 

Apple’s progress reflects the efforts of several other tech giants like Facebook, Microsoft, GoDaddy and Amazon, which have recently reported equal or nearly equal (99.8 percent, for example) pay for men and women.

 

Announcements from the other companies, however, didn’t address pay equity for race. Plus, there are still huge gaps across the industry for women and minority representation in tech-specific positions and leadership.

 

Yet, given the overall climate for women and minorities in tech, improvements from Apple and their competitors is substantially good news and will hopefully have positive impacts on an industry that overall isn’t very inclusive or equitable.

 

Women in tech earn an average of 20-25 percent less than their male counterparts, but this number varies greatly based on age, race and position. The greatest disparity based on position is among coders, but women in administration actually earn 7 percent more than men.

 

According to a survey of more than 10,000 tech employees, women ages 18-25 experience the biggest pay gap with a difference of 29 percent. This disparity grows and shrinks at different ages but once women reach 50 the difference is “only” 5 percent.

 

White women and black women in tech see the biggest pay gap relative to men of the same race (26 percent and 24 percent respectively). Nationally though, African-American women receive only 60 percent and Latina women only 55 percent of a white man’s salary for similar positions.

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