Accused of underpaying or snubbing women and Asian techies, Google spends pocket change to make it all go away Google will pay at least $3.8m to settle a dispute with Uncle Sam in which the ad giant was accused of paying woman engineers less than their male colleagues, and for discriminating against female and Asian candidates applying for technical positions. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs within the US government' …
But not, apparently, if it wears a skirt or has the wrong colour skin.
To be honest, I really doubt that this sort of thing is policy-from-the-top. Rather more likely, I feel, that either at the actual hiring decision point individuals are, consciously or otherwise, hiring people that match their own preconceptions of what they are looking for and will always select the closest they can.
This behavior may well be innate - hey, I'm no psychologist - and I'm not sure that there is a way to fix it, unless perhaps *each and every* hiring decision has oversight from an independent arbiter of the company's ethics/policy. And if a hirer cannot provide an adequate answer to 'why did you pick person X over person Y' then there is cause to reconsider that hiring decision.
Which is not to say in any way that people should be hired to just fill quotas of any kind: what a company needs and generally wants is the best it can get. But that 'best' should be examined.
"This behavior may well be innate ..."
It's well known that human discriminatory behaviour is innate. Humans have a basic mistrust of anything or anyone who is unknown or different, and that is also normal. Back when humans were evolving, being too trusting of the unknown could get you killed.
As beings of high* intelligence, we can be aware of our own biases when they arise and do our best to deal with them. Having diversity in the hiring decision-makers is important, so not everyone in the selection process has the same inherent bias.
*one can only hope
RE: "it can still get you killed. Especially if you're a teenage girl hitchiking a ride."
No matter what the woman wears, there is danger because...Men.
When women are forced to wear burkas, men, apparently, will then be lured if they catch a glimpse of naked ankle beneath all that cloth. Men will be attracted to their fantasies projected onto the other, no matter what. Men need to evolve a bit more quickly.
Let's not forget that innate behavior can be positive as well as negative. People have a tendency to hire someone that a friend recommends and that's hard to detect or legislate away.
Also, on the negative side, the 42% of US staff that is Asian are primarily male and they often have even more traditional attitudes about a woman's 'place'.
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I think they want committed employees, not an employee who will change careers to full time mum
Why waste everyones time, its the same with some people who go through the motions of getting a degree and never applying their skills to a job. I am shocked at how common this is. What a waste!
Considering Google is known for providing, on site, everything their employees could ever want or need, then how hard to provide a creche too? I bet, in fact, they do provide creche facilities so that all those mummies and daddies can maintain contact with their beloved. I bet, in fact, that you're trolling with a rather lame effort. Why not advocate barring women from education unless they have their ovens removed so there's no chance of any buns being baked, or educations being wasted. That would be a much more offensive troll.
I assume this includes "from China"; not sure if it includes "from India" as well (e.g Sundar Pichai)... But either way, it's hard to believe. There's boatloads of both in Silicon Valley, and Google is no exception.
I find it especially weird to imagine that in the dozens of offices Google has across the US there are three specific offices that have different hiring practices. In fact, it makes me wonder whether they used a 95% confidence test which unsurprisingly found statistical evidence of discrimination in 5% of offices (Mandatory XKCD reference).
>If they are paying women less, they why are there any men employed at Google?
Its really about the lack of suitably qualified candidates. I've had some experience hiring at technology companies in California and you'd be surprised at the volume of unsuitable candidates that turn up. The problem is that it takes a tad more than a degree, a training course and maybe a couple of years job hopping to qualify you to do serious project work. The expectations for salary are often quite out of line as well -- people just assume that because you have some knowledge of how to 'code' that that makes you some kind of software star. The reality is that you have to prove yourself first and this can be a gruelling and frustrating process.
I'm not saying that discrimination doesn't exist -- I've met and fought it on several occasions -- but I would counsel job candidates not to push this particular button if they can avoid it. What these candidates have done is made themselves a little money and potentially blacklisted themselves -- there isn't a formal blacklist that I know of (it would probably be illegal anyway) but most hiring involves a lot of personal knowledge among recruiters, HR personnel and hiring manager. Word gets about.
potentially blacklisted themselves
That I understand, the candidates receiving the money mostly never complained about not getting hired, and this settlement came from an investigation started by the DoL. It's unlikely that they would face repercussions from that, or even that anybody would know they had any part in it.
> Its really about the lack of suitably qualified candidates.
... said every corporate HR shill trying to hire as cheaply as possible.
It's really about the lack of suitable wages for qualified candidates.
There, how's that suit you? Turns out everyone can paint with a broad brush.
Yes this is "go away" money. The amounts in question say to me that they were not actually being discriminated against, but both parties wanted a settlement.
Google wanted it to limit the damage from a jury trial.
The Feds wanted it so they can continue to trumpet the ongoing need for their services.
Very simply: the fact that Google could make this go away with less than $4m payout means there was effectively no case to answer; to all intents and purposes, they were found to be in full compliance with any anti-discrimination laws and the $4m was simply them tipping the doorman on the way out of the settlement conference.
Is to request less than the alternative costs for the blackmailer. The cost to Google in staff time (legal, HR, managers) was probably more than $4m/quarter.
There would have to be some SERIOUS changes at Google if they were now discriminating against women, instead of for them. Someone already linked to the NYTimes article. As a former employee, Google was obsessed with pay equity. They have a team inside HR dedicated to slicing & dicing compensation & hiring. The main goal is to make sure that womenandminorities are not discriminated against.
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