How should Apple’s progress toward diversity be judged? Apple wants its workforce to be more diverse. Apple’s leadership team, for example, is currently 72 percent male and 63 percent white. The first thing worth noting is that the company is actually releasing this kind of information publicly. (This is apparently part of an industry trend.) Question for discussion: should stats like that be benchmarked against a) the US population, b) the world population, c) Cupertino, California, the community where Apple is headquartered, or d) against either the tech industry as a whole or the American business community as a whole? And, importantly, regardless of which of the above you choose, why? >>>
LINK: Apple Wants to Be Diverse, But White Dudes Still Run Things (by Davey Alba for Wired)
APPLE IS TRYING to make itself a more diverse company. In an open letter accompanying the release of its latest diversity figures, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company’s hiring practices are changing. He writes that in the past year, Apple hired over 11,000 women globally, 65 percent more than in the previous year. And in the US, he says, Apple hired more than 2,200 black employees—a 50 percent increase over last year—and 2,700 Hispanic employees, a 66 percent increase….
What do you think?
Brought to you by:
Business Ethics Highlights 
I don’t think that the statistics surrounding the demographics of Apple`s employees should be benchmarked against America`s population, or the world population, unless if the company is able to attract talent to their head offices on a national or international scale. I think it could be adequate to measure Apple`s demographics against the community where they are headquartered, if most of their employees live locally. However, I think a superior indication of how ethical Apple`s hiring practices are can be determined by comparing Apple`s employee demographic statistics to the demographic statistics of their qualified applicants pool. Are Apple`s employees lacking diversity because the company chooses to hire white people over other races? Or is Apple`s employee base lacking diversity because more white people have traditionally applied to the company, there are more white people with the correct qualifications and education in the radius of Apple`s headquarters,etc.?
I think what may be more beneficial to society, is the programs Apple is implementing, through which they support youth and minorities (i.e. helping out students at disadvantaged schools, connecting students at disadvantaged schools with technology). This is the type of work that needs to be done in order for us to see minorities and citizens from diverse backgrounds and lifestyles at the forefront of corporations, in leadership positions in future generations. I think empowerment of the worlds future business leaders may be much more important to solving the diversity issues that exist, than making annual goals to hire more people from underrepresented groups.