Google has become the latest tech giant to cut back its DEI efforts after sharing that it would end its goal of employing more candidates from historically underrepresented backgrounds. The company also said it would reevaluate some of its DEI programs, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
In an email to employees, Google revealed that it would abolish the hiring targets created to improve representation in its labor force. In 2020, during the resurgence of The Black Lives Matter movement, Google set out to expand the proportion of “leadership representation of underrepresented groups” by 30% by 2025.
What changes is Google making to its DEI efforts?
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, released its annual report on Wednesday and left out a sentence saying the company was “committed to making diversity, equity, and inclusion part of everything we do and to growing a workforce that is representative of the users we serve.” But that sentence was present in the previous reports in 2021 until 2024.
Google explained that it was assessing whether to resume releasing annual diversity reports as it has done since 2014. The assessment is part of a comprehensive review of DEI-related grants, training, initiatives, and even those that the email said “raise risk, or that aren’t as impactful as we’d hoped.”
The company added that it was reviewing recent court decisions and executive orders placed by President Trump designed to axe DEI in the government and federal contractors. However, Google said it would keep its resource groups for underrepresented employees.
What are other tech giants doing?
In January, Amazon removed the “Equity for Black People” and “LGBTQ+ Rights” sections and any mention of “transgender” from its company’s policy.
Meta has also said it was pivoting away from DEI as the “legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing,” on Friday, 11 January.
In the same month, Apple’s board of directors opposed a proposal by the National Center for Public Policy Research (a conservative think tank) to “consider abolishing its Inclusion & Diversity program, policies, department, and goals.”
Image: Boris Streubel / Getty Images
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