Silicon Valley Hiring: a Case Study — 5/2/17

This week I want to explore issues around hiring, including legal hiring rights and hiring diversity. We’re going to explore this topic through one of the most homogenous hiring pools in the country: Silicon Valley.

1. Let’s first get some background on hiring laws and worker rights:

Labor Laws and Issues | USA.gov

Skim through this doc, you don’t need to read all of it. Focus on the sections of Equal Pay and Discrimination and Harassment. I’m sure Joyce can speak to this more, but here are some interesting things to note:

1. The Equal Pay Act (EPA) requires that men and women in the same workplace be given equal pay for equal work. The jobs need not be identical, but they must be substantially equal. Job content (not job title) determines whether jobs are substantially equal.
2. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. These laws protect you against many types of employment discrimination including:

• Unfair treatment because of your race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, transgender status, and sexual orientation), pregnancy, national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information

2. Now that we have some idea of these hiring laws, let’s take a look at the diversity figures in the Valley.

Tech company diversity: How do the big players compare?

Summary, the top diverse big companies in the valley:

1. LinkedIn
2. Facebook
3. Cisco
4. eBay
5. Airbnb
6. Intel
7. Hewlett-Packard
8. Google
9. Microsoft

3. Why do people care and why does all of this matter?

Why Diverse Teams Are Smarter

4. How a lot of companies do hiring

How 'Culture Fit' Can Be a Shield for Hiring Discrimination

5. What one company is doing to get a more diverse team

How One Tech Start-Up Ditched Its Brogrammers

SUPPLEMENT:

1. cool graph showing the racial makeup of SF / the Valley in 2010

These Maps Reveal The Racial Makeup Of San Francisco And Silicon Valley