Facebook Makes Strides in Boosting Black, Latinx, Underrepresented Workforce

Facebook shared an update Thursday on its efforts to better support communities of color, women, members of the LGBTQ+ community and others through education, employment and increasing economic opportunities. The company set three goals to increase representation in its workforce by 2024: Double the number of women employees globally and double the number of Black and Hispanic employees in the U.S.Have at least 50% of the company’s workforce comprised of women globally, and underrepresented minorities, people with two or more ethnicities, people with disabilities and veterans in the U.S.Increase the number of U.S.-based leaders (director-level employees and above) who are people of color by 30%. Chief diversity officer Maxine Williams explained in a Newsroom post Thursday, “For these goals, we expect to see some fluctuation year to year based on company growth and volume in particular roles. We’ll keep working toward these goals regardless of whether we’re able to meet them within five years because progress in representation is critical to serve a global audience.” Williams pointed out that Facebook saw a 38.2% increase in Black leaders in the U.S. in just one year due to a focus on recruiting and retaining top talent. She added that over 21% of the company’s non-technical employees currently identify as Black or Hispanic, adding that 4.7% of U.S.-based employees identify as people with disabilities, 2.4% identify as veterans and its LGBTQ+ community makes up 10.6% of its U.S.-based workforce. One area where Facebook went in the wrong direction was overall representation of women in its workforce, which slipped to 36.7% in 2021 from 37% last year, although women in leadership ranks rose to 35.5% from 34.2%. Those leadership ranks have taken some big-name hits thus far in 2021 with the departures of vice president of application commerce Deborah Liu in February, vp of the global business group Carolyn Everson in June and head of the Facebook app Fidji Simo earlier this month. Williams also outlined related initiatives the company put in place over the past year. Facebook Reality Labs introduced its Responsible Innovation Principles last September to guide the development of more inclusive augmented reality and virtual reality products, which led to a new Accessibility tab in the settings for Oculus VR headsets, as well as a color correction feature which helps colorblind people more easily distinguish color. Inclusive product councils were created across the company to offer diverse perspectives and feedback to product teams. Black-owned businesses can now self-identify as such on Facebook and Instagram, and the social network boosted the discoverability of and ecommerce prospects for Asian and Pacific Islander-owned businesses. Facebook reached its goal of providing free digital skills training to 1 million members of the Black community and 1 million members of the Latinx community in the U.S. through its Facebook Elevate program, and it is on track to reach another goal of providing 100,000 scholarships to Black students working toward digital skills certifications through its Facebook Blueprint program. The company is on track to meet commitments it made last June to spend $1 billion with diverse suppliers in 2021, including $100 million with Black-owned businesses. Williams wrote, “Connecting the world takes people with different backgrounds and points of view to build products that work better for everyone. This means building a workforce that reflects the diversity of the people we serve … We’re proud of the progress we’ve made and will keep working to improve representation in our workforce and continue building products that reflect the diversity of the people that use them.”

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Facebook Makes Strides in Boosting Black, Latinx, Underrepresented Workforce

Total women slipped versus 2020 but, despite big-name losses, women in leadership roles rose

David Cohen

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David Cohen