(Corrects paragraph 8 to show Alphabet’s statement on DEI appeared in the company’s 2024 annual report too)
By Kenrick Cai
Alphabet’s Google is scrapping its goal to hire more employees from underrepresented groups and is reviewing some of its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, joining a slew of U.S. businesses scaling back diversity initiatives.
“In 2020, we set aspirational hiring goals and focused on growing our offices outside California and New York to improve representation,” Fiona Cicconi, Alphabet’s chief people officer, said in the memo on Wednesday, a copy which was reviewed by Reuters. “…but in the future we will no longer have aspirational goals.”
Google had been for years among the most vocal companies pushing for more inclusive policies in the wake of protests against the police killings of George Floyd and other Black Americans in 2020.
In 2020, CEO Sundar Pichai set a goal to have 30 per cent more of its leaders be from underrepresented groups by 2025. At the time, about 96 per cent of Google’s U.S. leaders were white or Asian, and 73 per cent globally were men.
In 2021, it began to evaluate executive performance on team diversity and inclusion after a prominent leader of artificial intelligence research said the company abruptly fired her after she criticized its diversity efforts. Google’s chief diversity officer Melonie Parker said in a 2024 interview with BBC that the company had hit 60 per cent of its five-year goals.
On Wednesday, the Alphabet spokesperson said the company did not have updated figures regarding Pichai’s goals.
Alphabet’s annual filing with the U.S. SEC on Wednesday showed it omitted a line saying it was “committed to making diversity, equity and inclusion part of everything we do and to growing a workforce that is representative of the users we serve.”
That statement appeared in annual reports from 2021 to 2024. The spokesperson said the line was removed to reflect its review of DEI programs.
Google, which sells cloud computing and other services to the U.S. government, also said it was reviewing policy changes by President Donald Trump aimed at curbing DEI in the government and among federal contractors.
“Because we are a federal contractor, our teams are also evaluating changes to our programs required to comply with recent court decisions and U.S. Executive Orders on this topic,” Cicconi said in the email.
The company will maintain internal employee groups like “Trans at Google,” “Black Googler Network” and the “Disability Alliance,” which the company has said inform decisions around products and policies.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on Wednesday about the memo.
Facebook parent Meta Platforms in January said in an internal memo it was ending its DEI programs, including those for hiring, training and picking suppliers.
Amazon also said it was “winding down outdated programs and materials” related to representation and inclusion, in a memo to its employees, seen by Reuters.
Conservative groups, fortified by a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that invalidated affirmative action in university admissions, have condemned DEI programs and have threatened litigation against companies implementing them.
