Uber has surprised us with its first-ever diversity report
No surprise, Uber is facing some heat ... a lot of it ... for its toxic workplace culture.
But, the ride-hailing giant is working to make some changes. One of the first steps is releasing its diversity report. You can see all of it here.
Here's the most glaring statistics.
Women employees account for 36.1% overall and 15.4% in tech across all of Uber
Black employees: 8.8% overall and 1% in tech across Uber
Hispanic employees: 5.6% overall and 2.1% in tech across Uber
And here is the most cringeworthy line:
"Our leadership is more homogenous than the rest of our employees. For example, no Black or Hispanic employees hold leadership positions in tech," the report reads.
Yes, the biggest non-surprise but not good at all: white people run Uber.
See above and look at all those damn zeroes, particularly for tech: 75 percent of Uber's leaders are white and 25 percent are Asian. There are no Hispanic people in leadership, no black and no multiracial.
The page includes a quote from Uber's global head of diversity and inclusion. Yes, they have one of those positions, as they damn well should and any company should. Bernard Coleman III joined Uber in January 2017 (three months prior) after serving as the chief diversity and human resources officer for Hillary for America.
The man is casting the damning report as having huge potential for change within the company.
“Diversity and inclusion is a huge opportunity—the opportunity to use different experiences and ideas to build a better workplace and a better company. It's amazing the progress you can make by harnessing employees' differences for the collective good," Coleman said in a statement.
The idea of Uber releasing a diversity report isn't new. In fact, the company made a public commitment to do so earlier this year, after they faced an initial round of criticism. Reverend Jesse Jackson, a leader for encouraging diversity in the tech industry, called on Uber to release the statistics back in January and demanded a meeting with Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.
Rev Jackson got what we wanted -- it only took three months and a wave of heat.
According to Uber board member Arianna Huffington, the potential issue of sexism at Uber is not systemic. "Yes, there were some bad apples, unquestionably. But this is not a systemic problem," Huffington told CNN.
Welp, the numbers look pretty damn bad.
Kerry Flynn is a business reporter for Mashable covering the tech industry. She previously reported on social media companies, mobile apps and startups for International Business Times. She has also written for The Huffington Post, Forbes and Money magazine. Kerry studied environmental science and economics at Harvard College, where she led The Harvard Crimson's metro news and design teams and played mellophone in the Band. When not listening to startup pitches, she runs half-marathons, plays with puppies and pretends to like craft beer.
