Nearly 90 percent of African American households own a computer according to the National Urban League’s 42nd annual State of Black America report. But in that same report, the data proves that not even 6 percent of total black employment last year was in tech (compared to 8.5 percent of white workers). And only 8.2 percent of degrees earned by black students fell under the STEM fields (compared to 12.8 percent of white students). Clearly, there’s still a disparity between the interest black people have in technology and the number of black people hired to work in tech.
The equality gap is especially high in social media and technology companies according to the National Urban League’s Digital Inclusion Index, so much so that fewer than 5 percent of employees at these companies are African American, while at least half of employees in these same companies are white.
So although there are still plenty of people without access to technology or the internet at home, that’s not the defining factor for the inequality in tech jobs. We see that black people are using technology at a high rate, it’s time for our presence in careers in tech to follow with fair and inclusive hiring.
