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Cape Town - Technology companies are still largely seen as too white and too male, and a new diversity publication from Pinterest seems to confirm this perception.
C|NET reported that the company released its diversity data on Thursday and the results indicate that despite 40% of company employees being women, only 19% are in leadership, and 21% in engineering.
Facebook recently admitted that demographics at the company is a concern with 69% of the globally popular social network's employees men, and the majority are white.
It's almost the same story at Twitter where 70% of its 3 000 employees are mostly white men.
Diversity data has come under scrutiny in America because of lobbying by influential individuals like the Reverend Jesse Jackson and others.
Apprehension
In SA, building diversity in the workplace has been a slow process because of a number of factors.
"But race predominates in South Africa precisely because of our apartheid legacy and the way in which our workplace has been skewed racially," UCT academic Terri Grant said in a published conversation with Melissa Steyn of iNCUDISA.
She said that white managers that were tasked with transformation did so in a way that entrenched employment patterns from the past.
"This small white minority still acts as gatekeepers for the majority group who are in power politically but certainly not economically. The minority manages the flow into the organisation and has also learnt to manage their 'face presentation'."
Increasing the diversity in the workplace may lead to improved agility for companies, particularly in the tech sphere, to move fast to capture new markets and increase profits.
Regardless of how diversity is achieved, it can result in apprehension and fear for employment.
IOL reported that Telkom would mostly target white males in a retrenchment programme as the state owned enterprise seeks to meet racial quotas and reduce its cost by R1bn.
Labour union Solidarity launched an urgent application in the Labour Court which ruled that a facilitator must be appointed to facilitate the consultations between Telkom and the union regarding the retrenchments.
C|NET reported that the company released its diversity data on Thursday and the results indicate that despite 40% of company employees being women, only 19% are in leadership, and 21% in engineering.
Facebook recently admitted that demographics at the company is a concern with 69% of the globally popular social network's employees men, and the majority are white.
It's almost the same story at Twitter where 70% of its 3 000 employees are mostly white men.
Diversity data has come under scrutiny in America because of lobbying by influential individuals like the Reverend Jesse Jackson and others.
Apprehension
In SA, building diversity in the workplace has been a slow process because of a number of factors.
"But race predominates in South Africa precisely because of our apartheid legacy and the way in which our workplace has been skewed racially," UCT academic Terri Grant said in a published conversation with Melissa Steyn of iNCUDISA.
She said that white managers that were tasked with transformation did so in a way that entrenched employment patterns from the past.
"This small white minority still acts as gatekeepers for the majority group who are in power politically but certainly not economically. The minority manages the flow into the organisation and has also learnt to manage their 'face presentation'."
Increasing the diversity in the workplace may lead to improved agility for companies, particularly in the tech sphere, to move fast to capture new markets and increase profits.
Regardless of how diversity is achieved, it can result in apprehension and fear for employment.
IOL reported that Telkom would mostly target white males in a retrenchment programme as the state owned enterprise seeks to meet racial quotas and reduce its cost by R1bn.
Labour union Solidarity launched an urgent application in the Labour Court which ruled that a facilitator must be appointed to facilitate the consultations between Telkom and the union regarding the retrenchments.
