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Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

bloomberg.com

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Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#101

Post by alphabettsy »

dahdum wrote: post #93
todd8 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See [1] and [2]. For example, 2015 median household income for Indian Asians is $100K while the same statistic for white non-hispanics appears to be $63K. [1] http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/fact-sheet/asian-americans-in... [2] https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/visualizations...

They also have much lower crime rates, much higher entrepreneurship, and higher educational attainment. Skilled immigration is awesome for the US.

This tends to be true for all recent immigrants, 1st and 2nd generation immigrants have much higher acheivement.

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#102

Post by spoiledtechie »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #61
spoiledtechie wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do it for black kids? Do they go into the inner cities and ask around?

Lets talk money instead of 'race' e.g. the Latino problem is similar, so money is probably the more important factor. Other programs like QuestBridge work hard to recruit folks who are underrepresented, either by family income or kids who are first in their family to attend college.

Um, the article explicitly describes race. Just staying on topic.

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#103

Post by asdsa5325 »

spoiledtechie wrote: post #18
Talyen42 wrote: post #12

I hired about 10 junior dev/qa/pm positions over 3 years as a manager in a SaaS tech company of 50-100. We posted on every job site and received 1,000+ resumes which I reviewed, in a city with ~30% african american population. Maybe 3 out of 1,000+ resumes were submitted by african americans, and none met most basic requirements for the position (either a relevant degree, or at least 1 year of related experience, or…

You could have offered apprenticeships to the black population.

He also could have handed out money for nothing, but that's missing the point.

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#104

Post by asdsa5325 »

spoiledtechie wrote: post #38
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such programs exist already. The SMART program for instance, which links college scholarship to a job. Companies do it all the time.

They do it for black kids? Do they go into the inner cities and ask around?

SMART is open to everyone. You can simply apply online.

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#105

Post by asdsa5325 »

n1231231231234 wrote: post #57
projectramo wrote: post #29

For all of those who claim it might be a pipeline problem, I looked it up and it looks like 4% of engineering degrees are granted (earned? Awarded?) to African Americans https://www.aps.org/programs/education/statistics/aamajors.c... Ill leave the interpretation up to you

but isn't this inline with the original article? > Blacks made up 7 percent of U.S. high-tech workforce, and just 3 percent of the total Silicon Valley workforce. 4% of the degrees are granted to members of the AA community, 3% of the jobs in SV are given to them. i guess SV companies recruit from the top graduates. it would be interesting to know the percentage of AA of say the top 10% graduates in the STEM fields.…

Geographic distribution is important. Many don't live, and don't want to live, in SV. I'm not quite sure why you are using SV as the gold standard, since there are many that want nothing to do with SV.

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#106

Post by paulddraper »

justin66 wrote: post #26
Talyen42 wrote: post #12

I hired about 10 junior dev/qa/pm positions over 3 years as a manager in a SaaS tech company of 50-100. We posted on every job site and received 1,000+ resumes which I reviewed, in a city with ~30% african american population. Maybe 3 out of 1,000+ resumes were submitted by african americans, and none met most basic requirements for the position (either a relevant degree, or at least 1 year of related experience, or…

> Maybe 3 out of 1,000+ resumes were submitted by african americans How do you know? I'm curious because it seems like you'd have to have a spot on the job application for applicants to indicate their race and you'd need to exclude a "prefer not to answer" option in order to be confident about this.

> How do you know?

Fair point. But even if another of the 297 of 1,000 were in reality black, the OP didn't know and the OP's point about not being part of the problem still stands. Right?

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#107

Post by noetic_techy »

protonimitate wrote: post #64
noetic_techy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when really we as a national don't honestly want to see marginalized groups succeed How does that explain the success of Asian Americans?

I think that depends on how you measure success. Strictly in business terms, sure they have more success than other groups, but I don't think (assuming here, no facts) they have over taken White people as the predominant group in leadership roles, high paying positions, or otherwise 'stakeholders'. If that's not true, feel free to correct.

I think the other comments here point to the fact that this systemic racism argument doesn't hold up well against actual studies and data. It's an ill defined spectre that vanishes when you look closely.

> over taken White people as the predominant group in leadership roles, high paying positions, or otherwise 'stakeholders'

Is that the bar here? Median household income has always been the bar when talking about the success of racial groups, not the number in leadership roles etc etc. I mean, are we only supposed to be satisfied when 4.8% of all leadership roles are held by Asian Americans? What about their cultural preferences? What about regional populations?

The truth is actual a lot more nuanced. It essentially boils down to a cultural and pipeline problem:

The study:

http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/assets/documents/race...

The liberal viewpoint:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/19/upshot/race-c...

The conservative viewpoint:

https://www.dailywire.com/news/28473/nyt-claims-groundbreaki...

The counter arguments logic is hard to ignore. The answer is probably somewhere in the middle.

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#108

Post by pwinnski »

sanxiyn wrote: post #83
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody talks about the pipeline problem, it's just whatever specific stage of the pipeline you're at it's much easier to shunt responsibility down to an earlier stage. Having problems hiring black tech workers? It's the college's fault. Having problems graduating black students with BSs in STEM? It's the high school's fault. Having problems graduating black students from high school? Really it's the fault of the c…

Black-white education gap is trivially explained by black-white IQ gap. (If you don't believe in IQ, standardized test score gap, or whatever.) It's not school's fault. The most probable reason is genetics.

Nasty nonsense. Flies in the face of both evidence and reason.

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#109

Post by jfnixon »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #95
sanxiyn wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you can attain statistical significance with large sample (N > 100,000). No, it's still insignifcant, because effect size is so small. Did you read the article? The effect is less than 1 point of IQ, whereas black-white IQ gap is usually quoted as 15 points.

Hmm? They find that one additional year of schooling increases IQ by 3.7 points. I'd say taking that figure with the difference in schools that blacks and whites in the US usually attend and you've got a plausible answer that the IQ gap is created through environmental differences.

I think the PISA tests disprove your hypothesis.

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#110

Post by calvinbhai »

Someone recently had tweeted the concentration of Black population in the US. Tech companies are no where in those concentrated areas.

Porbably a way for Tech companies to build diverse teams, is to setup research facilities and programs that encourage better pipelines, in states with higher black population (not SF, LA, NYC/Austin)

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