It is widely known that minorities and women are often paid less than their white male counterparts. However, a new study from Hired details just how much less Black men and women are paid than their white counterparts in the tech industry. According to data analyzed by Hired, Black women are paid 90 cents for every dollar that a white man makes in the tech industry. Furthermore, Black men in tech are paid 89 cents for every dollar that a white man makes in the tech industry. These rates rank lower than the pay offered to white women, Asian men, Hispanic men, and Asian women.
Hired has put together studies examining pay in the tech industry for the past five years. For their most recent report, Hired obtained data from 10,000 companies, 245,000 job seekers and 2,000 current employees in the industry. After obtaining data from this large group, Hired begins breaking down responses and accounting for different positions, experiences, companies, etc. From there, the report is released. Unfortunately, this year's study reflects an all too familiar conversation within the tech industry.
Major companies have lagged in terms of hiring Black leaders at executive and entry levels. For example, Amazon went more than two decades without hiring a Black professional to join their S-team. When asked if it had any plans to double Black representation at the executive level, Amazon said no and declined to provide a reason as to why they wouldn't want to.
Elsewhere, the United States Department of Labor fined Google more than $2 million for its discriminatory practices. At Facebook, recruiters and job applicants filed a complaint against the company for allegedly discriminating against tech professionals of color in regards to pay, hiring and promotion opportunities. Not to mention, there was an incident in 2019 in which GQ was accused of photoshopping two women into a meeting of top tech CEOs that did not include any women. Most recently, 60 Minutes was accused of erasing two leading Black researchers in facial recognition from a story about racial bias in facial recognition.
"We Black women waste so much time and energy trying to fight the erasure of our work, words and ideas," Karen Attiah of the Washington Post said regarding the matter.
Unfortunately, it does not appear that much is changing in the near future. In fact, the pay gap between Black men and white men widened in 2020 when compared to where it was in 2019. When Black men and women confronted their employees about receiving comparable pay, 35% said they were promised a raise they never received. Another 45% said they were told the pay gap existed for factors other than race or gender. In the end, Black tech professionals work to revolutionize the industry, but are rarely paid like their peers.
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