EBay becomes a little more diverse
SAN FRANCISCO — EBay's efforts to diversify its workforce improved the company's gender and ethnic makeup by 1 percentage point since figures were last reported in July 2014.
The online marketplace's global employee roster remains largely white (60%, down from 61% last summer) and male (57%, from 58%).
Similarly, women in leadership positions grew a point to 29%, although the number of women in tech and non-tech roles remained the same at 24% and 49%, respectively.
The overall makeup of the company in the USA also changed slightly: Asians, blacks and Hispanics make up 25% (up 1 point), 8% (up 1 point) and 5% (unchanged). Asians gained 1 point in leadership positions to 24% (blacks and Hispanics stayed level at 2% each). In tech roles, Asians were up 1 point to 56% of eBay jobs.
The modest change underscores that, even with a strong commitment from top management, it will take some time to change the makeup of Silicon Valley's biggest tech companies, which are largely white and male.
Among minorities in non-tech roles, blacks lead with 11%, Asians are at 10% (last summer, Asians led the category). Hispanic non-tech employees remain unchanged at 7%.
EBay has 33,000 employees worldwide. This year, the peer-to-peer e-commerce giant will break into two companies, eBay and its payments division, PayPal.
"As eBay and PayPal separate into two independent companies during 2015, both plan to provide data updates for 2016 to give each of them a full year to collect diversity data," spokesperson Abby Smith says. "It's important though that each company has a full year of data.
"We will give each company some time to chart its course, so the next time we'll report (diversity) findings is for 2016," Smith says.
Ever since Google was first among the major tech companies to release a full slate of employment data, many others have followed suit as pressure has increased from a range of groups — most notably Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition — that contend it is morally and financially sound for tech firms to look more like their customers. According to the U.S. Census, the country is roughly 77% white, 17% Hispanic and 13% African American.
In March, Jackson visited Apple headquarters and told CEO Tim Cook, "We urge you to put more people of color in top management ... and look like America." Cook responded that the company's "diversity is increasing ... and I want it to be better — it will get better. This does not happen overnight. The recruiting process takes time. But rest assured: We get it."
Under outgoing eBay CEO John Donahoe, the tech stalwart has made efforts over the past four years to improve its diversity, in particular when it comes to women at the company.
The eBay Women's Initiative Network aims to ensure women are heard and promoted by encouraging them to speak out and signaling to male executives that more women should be in leadership roles.
"It's about becoming a better company," Donahoe told USA TODAY at the last WIN Summit in March. "Sometimes it's very hard to change the culture, and you feel like it's two steps forward and one back. But nothing good comes easy. I've learned the value of resilience and commitment."
On the company's blog Wednesday, it touted the fact that top executives joined the tech-leadership condemnation of religious-freedom laws in Indiana that were seen as injurious to gays and lesbians, and that it was working with a range of organizations bent on making Silicon Valley more diverse, including Black Planet, Black Women Connect, African American Careers and the National Society of Hispanic MBAs.
"As a prelude to the separation of eBay and PayPal into two new, independent businesses in the second half of 2015, (new CEOs) Devin Wenig and Dan Schulman (have) reaffirmed their commitment to advancing these issues ... and have begun to develop their respective diversity strategies," the blog post noted.