Google is the latest tech firm to drop diversity hiring targets following Trump’s executive orders
President Trump has issued a slew of executive orders in the early days of his second stint in the White House. Among these are several designed to cut back on government and federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives that helped to boost job opportunities for underrepresented groups.
Following the executive orders and court rulings, numerous firms -- including tech companies such as Amazon and Meta -- announced that they were rolling back, revising, or killing off their DEI hiring targets. Now Google has followed suit.
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Google did not make a public announcement about its change of policy, but the Wall Street Journal reports about an email sent to employees that is very revealing. In addition to ditching its diversity hiring targets, the email also sees Google saying that it plans to review its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
It has become common practice for companies to publish diversity reports each year, but Google now says that it may not release this information in the future
When contacted for comment a Google spokesperson said:
We’re committed to creating a workplace where all our employees can succeed and have equal opportunities, and over the last year we’ve been reviewing our programs designed to help us get there. We’ve updated our 10-k language to reflect this, and as a federal contractor, our teams are also evaluating changes required following recent court decisions and executive orders on this topic.
The Guardian also notes that when Alphabet made its annual filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission this week, the company removed a line present in previous years in which it said 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”.
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