Google's nearly static diversity numbers point to long road ahead

In 2014, facing mounting criticism from civil rights leaders, Google took a major step to address gender and racial imbalance in its workforce: It publicly divulged that lack of diversity. Major technology companies soon followed suit, leading to a more open dialogue about diversity in an industry dominated by white and Asian men. On June 1st, Google released an update on its efforts to close the gender and racial gap. The update shows the Internet giant is moving the needle but very slowly.

At Google, seven out of 10 employees are still men. Most employees are white (60 percent) and Asian (31 percent). Latinos made up just 3 percent of the work force, African Americans 2 percent -- a far cry from fulfilling the mission of Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to have their company reflect the diversity of its customers in the USA and around the world. But Nancy Lee, Google's vice president of people operations, said that the company is seeing "a lot of positive trends." "I think we are getting better and we are hoping that ultimately we are able to accelerate the improvement," Lee said. Women made slight progress in technical roles at Google since 2014, rising one percentage point to 18 percent, but African Americans and Hispanics were unchanged at 1 percent and 2 percent respectively. Among non-technical employees, African Americans gained ground, making up 4 percent versus 3 percent a year ago. Women lost ground, representing 47 percent versus 48 percent. Hispanics didn't budge at 4 percent. In Google's leadership ranks, women now account for 22 percent, up from 21 percent, but Hispanics and African Americans made no progress in climbing the corporate ladder at Google. The diversity report hints at the enormity of the task ahead for Google and the industry overall.