Twitter Sets Goals to Increase Diversity

01 Sep Twitter Sets Goals to Increase Diversity

Twitter Inc. on Friday set self-imposed goals for the number of women and minorities in its workforce by the end of next year, in an effort to improve diversity.

Twitter’s goals appear to be modest but realistic. The representation of women it hopes to have is within reach. For instance, it is targeting 35% female representation in its global staff, up from 34% currently. It wants women to hold 16% of tech jobs, up from 13% now, and a quarter of its leadership positions, up from 22% now.

Twitter has a bigger gap to breach for underrepresented minorities in leadership roles in the U.S. By next year, it wants 6% of domestic leadership roles to be filled by underrepresented minorities, who are not white or Asian. There are currently zero, a drop from 4% last year.

The company considered factors like U.S. Census data, Department of Labor statistics, the matriculation rates of underrepresented minorities at domestic colleges, industry peers and internal data in coming up with the target figures.

Twitter’s diversity goals come amid ongoing criticism that tech companies aren’t doing enough to address the problem of low diversity. Last year, companies such as Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. began releasing information about the makeup of their workforces. Now, Twitter has joined Pinterest Inc. as one of the first companies to announce diversity goals.

For the most part, Twitter’s workforce portrait still looks mostly white and male. Asians comprise about a third of its domestic employees. But in the past year, the percentage of women in its workforce and in tech jobs increased. In the U.S., however, underrepresented minorities such as blacks and Hispanics fell to 10%, down from 12% the previous year. Twitter aims to increase that to 11% by next year.

Its overall workforce has grown significantly, to 4,100 at the end of June from 3,300 in the same period a year earlier.

In a company blog post, Twitter said it will partner with organizations that offer career guidance to underrepresented minorities, be present at historically black colleges and Hispanic-serving institutions, and work on its recruiting and hiring tactics to attract a more diverse pool of candidates. For instance, it has been mindful that its job descriptions appeal to a broader range applicants, interview panels are diverse and job postings are available in places where underrepresented prospective candidates will see them.

Correction: The percentage of underrepresented minorities at Twitter in the U.S. fell this year. A previous version of this article said the percentage rose.

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