The Twitter workforce is 34 percent female. By next year, the social media site wants to boost that number to 35 percent.
The modest goal is among several diversity objectives at Twitter that the tech company announced Friday, marking its first time publicly pledging targets.
“We’re holding ourselves accountable to these measurable goals, as should you,” wrote Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion Janet Van Huysse in a blog post.
Tech companies began releasing diversity reports a couple years ago under pressure to improve low hiring rates for women and people of color, especially African-Americans and Latinos. But they still faced criticism for not revealing specific plans to reverse the trend.
The tech world may be gradually turning more transparent, once again, as Twitter becomes the second major company after Pinterest to release diversity goals.
The company with 4,100 employees worldwide said it wants to see its workforce include:
_Women in 35 percent of jobs, up from 34 percent.
_Women in 16 percent of tech roles, up from 13 percent.
_Women in 25 percent of leadership roles, up from 22 percent.
_Underrepresented minorities in 11 percent of its U.S. jobs, up from 10 percent for ethnicities other than white and Asian.
_Underrepresented minorities in 9 percent of its U.S. tech roles, up from 7 percent for ethnicities other than white and Asian.
_Underrepresented minorities in 6 percent of its U.S. leadership roles, which are currently 72 percent white and 28 percent Asian.
But the latest diversity figures from fellow tech titans Facebook and Apple suggest that change could some slowly.
At Facebook, between last year and now, 91 percent of its U.S. workforce remained a mix of white and Asian, with no changes in other ethnic groups. The amount of women increased by one percentage point, to 32 percent.
Apple remained about half white, with the African-American workforce increasing by one percentage point and Latino numbers remaining the same. Women represent 31 percent of its global workforce, up by one percentage point from last year.
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By Daina Beth Solomon from The Los Angeles Times
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