Silicon Valley: Fewer Blacks, Latinos and Women
By Ria Sharma

America can be rightly proud of many things.  It is universally admired for allowing in migrants from every country and giving them a chance to do well in life.  President Obama’s electoral win showed most Americans have risen above colour and creed. Obama, in turn, nominated many migrants to top jobs in the Govt.

But it seems that in America’s Silicon Valley, Blacks, Latinos and women are losing out. When Mercury News wanted to do a story on the race and gender data of Silicon Valley’s 15 largest companies based on data filed with US Department of Labour, many tech companies opposed the release of their employee break up.

Nine tech companies including Intel, Cisco Systems, eBay, AMD, Sanmina and Sun Microsystems authorized the U.S. Department of Labor to release the data. HP tried but did not do the legal paper work to stop their data being released.

Intel spokesperson Chuck Mulloy told the newspaper: “There's nothing to hide, in our view. We just felt that we're very proud of the (diversity) programs we have in place and the efforts we put forth, and we don't have any trouble sharing it."

Google, Yahoo and Oracle refused to reveal their data saying it would cause commercial harm.  How?  Is there a formula of race and gender break up which ensures more commercial success? Apple computers have mainly white managers and they have made it one of the most successful companies of the world. Mercury News reported

“
The Labor Department data ultimately obtained by the Mercury News shows that while the collective work force of 10 of the valley's largest companies grew by 16 percent from 1999 to 2005, an already small population of black workers dropped by 16 percent, while the number of Hispanic workers declined by 11 percent. By 2005, only about 2,200 of the 30,000 Silicon Valley-based workers at those 10 companies were black or Hispanic.

In addition, among the roughly 5,900 managers at those companies in 2005, about 300 were either black or Hispanic — a 20 percent dip from five years earlier. Women slipped to 26 percent of managers in 2005, from 28 percent in 2000.
“

I feel that many of these Americans have lost out to migrants from India and China.  Also, perhaps the Department of Labour should release the same data for Indians companies now based in USA.  No guesses that most of their employees will be from India.