back to article Intel's latest diversity report shows numbers at a standstill

Intel’s latest Diversity and Inclusion mid-year report shows that numbers of African American and Hispanic people have hardly changed, despite the company’s $300m pledge to achieve full representation by 2020. Although the number of female workers have slowly been rising – especially for those in more senior roles – the same …

  1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    Yes, and...?

    So is this a "Standard Sociological Justice Model" null result?

    “Without a workforce that more closely mirrors the population, we are missing opportunities, including not understanding and designing for our own customers.”

    I really hate dogmatic bullshit.

    1. Kumar2012

      Re: Yes, and...?

      "“Without a workforce that more closely mirrors the population, we are missing opportunities, including not understanding and designing for our own customers.” -- indeed it is the typical condescending bullshit from racist liberals with a superiority complex, us 'backward' brown people are not like other people and so need special treatment... also we are all one monolithic block, so just get a few random brown people and then we know what all the millions of other ones think.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Yes, and...?

        It's true. I'm typing this on an ARM powered device because they have a much greater representation of us Cambridge PhDs than Intel

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "... numbers of African American and Hispanic people have hardly changed, despite the company’s $300m pledge to achieve full representation by 2020."

    Do they really think this can be changed overnight? If there are insufficient candidates available to meet "quota" now, then you have to go back to the root causes. And this is usually down to lack of academic opportunities at the start of their education.

    To address this, vast sums will have to be put into primary/secondary education as well as making sufficient university places available. And they expect all this to hapen in just a few years?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      You also have to consider if those people actually want that education in the first place.

      There is also the need for motivation of the minorities in the first place.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        >You also have to consider if those people actually want that education in the first place.

        Which is the only justification of these policies.

        If I am black and I believe that tech companies don't hire black engineers then it isn't logical for me to go $50k in debt and spend 4 years getting a tech degree if it isn't going to pay off.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    white is the new Black

    When is a minority not a minority? If you look at the comments of OFSTED's Chairman David Whore, it would seem that there are plenty of 'White Brothers' in the ghetto.

  4. Sean Kennedy

    I guess I'm still not seeing the problem. By this point I think we've come to the conclusion that it's not discriminatory hiring practices that are causing the numbers, but rather a deeper cultural issue.

    If that's the case, then why should companies care? They should be hiring the best candidates for the positions, and indeed, that seems to be what is happening.

    Where's the problem?

    1. Simon Barker

      The problem is there's too many people with loud voices who firmly believe in identity politics.

  5. richard?

    The numbers here are useless - what really matters is the breakdown relative to turnover, not total staff. Assuming you have a fair recruiting policy, your new recruits should be diverse, but it will take a long time (potentially a working lifetime) for this to work through the organisation.

    1. Kernel

      " Assuming you have a fair recruiting policy, your new recruits should be competent to do the job",

      FTFY.

  6. William 3 Bronze badge

    Stop with this bloody nonsense.

    Asians are doing well for themselves in tech, despite being a minority.

    Because they themselves want to succeed.

    So can we cut the crap about "minorities" being prejudiced against when certain minorities would rather be out protesting or smashing up their town complaining about perceived "injustices", demanding special treatment, whilst bleating on with their racist bullshit that "black" lives matter.

    Stop treating them like victims, and they will stop acting like victims. If they don't want to go into tech because they are lazy fuckers, so be it, but stop pointing the finger at everyone else who worked hard to better themselves and expect them to feel guilty some fucker with a chip on their shoulder believes the world owes them everything because of the colour of their skin.

    Seriously.

  7. Mike Shepherd
    Meh

    Equality for all !

    Surely people with below-average intelligence represent about half the population. Is Intel doing enough to recruit them, too?

  8. JLV

    It's a complex issue for sure. At the company level, I don't buy the "won't understand our customers" much. And, while we shouldn't tolerate negative hiring discrimination, there is little joy in having incompetent coworkers of any color. And, yes, there are cultural problems within some minorities.

    But, at a larger scale, once your country has sizeable minorities, it is in everyone's long term interest that large segments of the population are capable to fully participate in economic opportunities. If that doesn't happen everyone else gets stuck with societal unrest, possibly criminal activity and welfare bills.

    So _some_ nudging from the pure meritocracy path can be warranted. Even from the perspective of a white taxpayer.

    Call me an optimist, but I believe success breeds success. Once some members of an ethnic group succeed, their status can motivate others to follow. The reverse effect is, IMHO, responsible for a lot of underperformance - if all your buds are on the dole easy to blame the dominant group and retreat on yourself.

    In many cases, there a mix of some negative discrimination by the majority coupled with a culture of non-participation by the minority. Complex to break this kind of fail, but doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

    I'll add that I also consider it the decent thing to do. But there are cold hearted reasons to do it anyway.

    Last, and cynically, in our age of Internet outrage, a company may find it in its best interest to at least appear motivated to diversity. So why not try to do a good job if you're stuck doing it anyway? As long as you don't just hire underqualified folk.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm just glad it's 2016 and we are not employing people based on their skin colour.

    Oh wait...

    Actively seeking out and employing people solely based on Gender, Religion or Race is racist and you can wrap it up in diversity all you want but it's still racism.

    What happens when you diversify your workforce and promote people not on ability? It causes racism and people to feel hard done by.

  10. YourNameHere

    They dont exist

    I have been interviewing for 15 years. My company demands at 3.5 GPA and usually Masters in the area. I don't think I have gotten a signal resume that meets the above requirement from a minority. Heck, even in the last 8 years I have not interviewed even a US citizen... That really makes me upset.

    1. PushF12

      Re: They dont exist

      By preferring inflated (and sometimes totally bogus) foreign credentials, your employer contributed to the problem.

      Take a chance on an American. Import labor won't be contributing to your social security or the society that your children will be living in.

      1. YourNameHere

        Re: They dont exist

        When your starting pay is $85K+ a year, you have to have some requirements. I have also worked for large companies that would hire almost anyone, and with lower GPAs 3.0+. They had a different issue, basically a lot of dead weight.

        Per the GPA requirement above, the GPA above was not from an international school. They were from US schools. So do I hire someone with a high GPA that gives my company a better chance of winning than taking a risk on someone who wanted to party every weekend or spend time playing their XBOX?

        But the real issue still comes down to "Where are these engineers I am supposed to hire?" Even talking to the professors at the schools, they don't exist. Even caucasian grads are getting fewer. Wish all you want, but go find these people you want me to hire, they don't exist.

        Per the supporting me and my SS, I kind of disagree with you if you want to take the cynical view . These engineers are being taxed at the highest tax bracket now and will not be around later to draw SS.

  11. YARR

    The measure of racial discrimination by Intel would be a comparison of the ethnic ratios employed versus the ratio who applied for positions and met the requirements. Comparing Intel's US workforce to the US population as a whole is not a representative measure of racial discrimination. Aside from people of different ethnicity either not applying for positions or not having the qualifications and experience to apply (which is not Intel's fault), there's also the issue of whether they live within a commutable distance of the workplace. The price of housing in different regions can be a barrier to people applying for work there. Perhaps Intel should analyse living costs and whether qualified people of "minority" ethnic groups generally reside in areas too far from Intel's current sites.

    International companies generally vary pay across countries according to the cost of living, however if the pay level varies within a country due to regional variation in cost of living, and there is a marked difference in ethnic origin of people living in those regions, that might be interpreted as a form of unfair pay discrimination.

  12. John Savard

    Obvious Cause

    Since minorities are disadvantaged, it is not surprising that the proportion of them at high levels of educational qualification will be lower than in the society as a whole.

    But, in addition, technical companies serving the consumer market have an additional difficulty.

    Many of the qualified electrical engineers, computer programmers, and so on, who belong to minority groups will have been hired by tech companies with defense contracts or which are otherwise suppliers to the government, because those businesses are required by law to show compliance with Equal Opportunity Employment regulations.

    As a result, the remaining companies that are trying to make their workforces more diverse simply to show a commitment to social justice and so on will have a smaller pool of qualified workers to draw on.

  13. richardcox13
    FAIL

    > the figure was bumped up a mere 0.1 per cent, from 0.5 to 0.6 per cent.

    I know journalists are not famed for their mathematical skills but this is a technical publication so needs calling out.

    An increase from 0.5 to 0.6 is a twenty percent increase. It may only be 0.1 percentage points, but 0.1 is a large proportion of 0.5.

  14. Mike Shepherd
    Meh

    ???

    Who are these people talking about GPA and what is it anyway?

    1. nkuk

      Re: ???

      GPA is Grade Point Average, a measure of how well someone has done in school.

    2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: ???

      GPA is Gallons Per Acre and is very important when you are working with a muck spreader.

      Why the amount of shit you are able to spray is useful in hiring managers isn't clear

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