Apple failed to improve diversity much in 2015

A group of people stand in a circle bringing four puzzle pieces together

Apple's latest diversity scorecard shows it has not improved the percentage of non-white, non-male workers as much as had been hoped.

In fact, a total 83 per cent of workers in executive or other senior positions are male, and 83.5 per cent are white, according to Apple's new EEO-1 Federal Employer Information report, collating data accurate as of August 2015.

Just 30 per cent of Apple's workforce are women, an increase of only one per cent from 2014, and the number of black or African American employees has risen from eight per cent to just 8.6 per cent.Likewise, 11.7 per cent of workers are Hispanic or Latino, up slightly from 11.5 per cent the previous year.

Last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook pledged to improve diversity across the company in an official post, calling it "critical to innovation" and "essential to Apple's future."

"We aspire to do more than just make our company as diverse as the talent available to hire," he said. "We must address the broad underlying challenges, offer new opportunities and create a future generation of employees as diverse as the world around us. We aspire to make a difference beyond Apple."

In separate figures to the latest diversity report, Apple said that 35 per cent of new global hires in August 2015 had been women, with 19 per cent of US hires comprising Asian people, 13 per cent Hispanic people and 11 per cent black people. These percentages are not present in the new report.

Cook continued: "Some people will read this page and see our progress. Others will recognise how much farther we have to go. We see both. And more important than these statistics, we see tens of thousands of Apple employees all over the world, speaking dozens of languages, working together."

Caroline Preece

Caroline has been writing about technology for more than a decade, switching between consumer smart home news and reviews and in-depth B2B industry coverage. In addition to her work for IT Pro and Cloud Pro, she has contributed to a number of titles including Expert Reviews, TechRadar, The Week and many more. She is currently the smart home editor across Future Publishing's homes titles.

You can get in touch with Caroline via email at caroline.preece@futurenet.com.