Jane Edwards
A new Intel report says 43.1 percent of the technology firm’s new hires in 2015 were women and underrepresented minorities, exceeding the company’s annual diversity hiring goal of 40 percent.
Intel said in the report released Wednesday the company increased the employment of women and underrepresented minorities in 2015 by nearly 43 percent and 31 percent respectively.
The company said it aims to raise the diverse hiring rate to 45 percent this year and that 14 percent of them should have to be minority hires.
Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said the company expects women and minorities to be fully represented in its workforce by 2020 and that other tech firms should also disclose data on diversity among its employees.
Aarti Shahani also reports for NPR that Intel has faced challenges when it comes to the retention of African-American employees.
Neil Green, a vice president at Intel, said the retention problem could be partly attributed to the lack of relationships between senior executives and staff.
“From the folks that I’ve talked to, I think African-Americans get frustrated that they’re not progressing faster,” Green said.
“They aren’t necessarily meeting with and being sponsored by the senior executives.”
