Apple charts new programs to help students from minority groups learn to code; diverstiy figures up

Apple hired over 11,000 women across its global operations during the past one year and this is 65% higher when compared with the previous year. In the US, Apple reportedly hired over 2,200 Black employees, a 50% rise compared to the previous year; and 2,700 Hispanic employees, representing a 66% increase.

After hiring of 65% more women than last year, Apple is poised to continue its vivid recruitment policy towards achieving the more diversity in the workforce. The world's largest company by market capitalization believes that diversity is a critical component to innovation and this is essential for Apple's future.

Apple has decided to continue hiring techies and experts regardless of race, gender, gender identity, ethnicity, religion, age or sexual orientation. Towards this goal, Apple will strengthen supporting programs to help students at historically black colleges and universities to enhance their talent and skills to stay ahead in the technology job market.

The company is setting up new programs to help students learn to code. Since the representation of diverse talent pool in the total workforce is less than 20% at the majority of technology companies, there's a long way for them to go.

Apple's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Tim Cook said in a message on the company's website that there was a lot more work to be done.

"In the first six months of this year, nearly 50% of people we've hired in the US are women, black, Hispanic or Native American. We're working hard to expand our recruiting efforts so we continue hiring talented people from groups that are currently underrepresented in our industry," says Cook in his message.

Apple is offering ConnectED program that brings the latest technology to the most economically disadvantaged schools and communities in the US. "We're also hosting hundreds of students at our annual developer conference and we're setting up new programs to help students learn to code," said Cook.

There was 92,600 full-time staff as on September 2014. Apple is making waves in the global technology market particularly the US Silicon Valley, which is engaged in a debate over the lack of diversity in Silicon Valley and how to enhance gender and race ratios. Perhaps, Apple is showing the way to other technology companies in this regard.

Further explaining about Apple's perception regarding diversity in its recruitment process, Cook said in the message being displayed on the company's website: "Some people will read this page and see our progress. Others will recognize how much farther we have to go."

Many global technology majors are adopting diversity concept in their recruitment process. For instance, Google in June said women accounted for 21% of its recruitment taken place last year.

This improved the overall representation of women in technical jobs by one per cent. This shows the lower level of representation of women in the workforce. Despite all these encouraging programs to boost diversity, the women representation is still at bottom level at the major technology companies.

According to a news item carried by USA Today, Apple is still male dominated and mostly white. 69% of the workforce comprised males and white account for 54%. The top managerial positions held by males up to 72% and 63% involved white.