Google says it will increase diversity in leadership 30 percent by 2025

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, said on Wednesday that the search giant would include more black employees and employees from other “underrepresented groups” in its management positions. The company promised a 30% improvement over the next five years.

The promise is part of a broader set of commitments that Google has announced regarding racial justice. It is because people around the world have protested against systemic racism after several blacks have been killed by the police, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks.

“In the past few weeks, violent and racist attacks against the black community have forced the world to count on the structural and systemic racism that black people have experienced across generations,” Pichai wrote in a blog post. “My own search for answers started within our own walls.”

Pichai said Google will try to achieve its leadership diversity goal by posting internal and external job advertisements and increasing investment in cities like Atlanta and Washington, DC – cities with large black populations. At Google, black employees make up only 3.7% of the US workforce, an increase of 3.3% in the previous year.

Google also announced a $ 175 million package to help black business owners, founders, and developers of startups. This includes $ 100 million for black venture capital firms and start-ups, and $ 50 million for small businesses that focus on the black community. The pledge follows a separate $ 100 million fund that YouTube announced last week to help black creators on the video platform.

Pichai also said that Google is setting up a task force to implement ideas that help Google’s products better serve black users.

The new commitments come because Google has been criticized for how it deals with diversity issues. According to a report by NBC News, the company has been accused of cutting back on its diversity efforts, including cutting and outsourcing employee training. Google denied having cut back on its efforts, and Pichai earlier this month said diversity was a “fundamental” value for Google.

At a general meeting earlier this month, the company rejected a shareholder proposal demanding that executive compensation packages be linked to the diversity and inclusion goals. The practice has been adopted by several other technology giants, including IBM and Intel.

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