Apple very quietly released its most recent EEO-1 report, which breaks down employee data by race, gender, job categories, etc., over the weekend. This comes shortly after its predominantly white board of directors called the proposed adoption of an accelerated recruitment process to increase the diversity of its board of directors and senior management “unduly burdensome and not necessary.”
The report, which represents employee data as of August 2015, shows slight diversity progress, with the hiring of 1,475 African-Americans, 1,633 Hispanics and 1,662 Asians over a 13-month period. In that same time period, Apple hired 4,096 white people.
In August 2015, Apple released its diversity report with a lot of fanfare. It launched a diversity site with a bunch of snazzy graphs, and a letter from Apple CEO Tim Cook about the company’s commitment to diversity. What’s odd is that, according to Cook, Apple hired more than 2,200 black employees in the U.S. over the last year, but the EEO-1 report says otherwise.
Here’s Apple’s explanation:
“We make the document publicly available, but it’s not how we measure our progress,” Apple’s diversity page states. “The EEO-1 has not kept pace with changes in industry or the American workforce over the past half century. We believe the information we report elsewhere on this site is a far more accurate reflection of our progress toward diversity.”
I reached out to Apple to clarify, but the company said it has no additional comment to make.