From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Diversity in the Technology Sector Description: Tech companies are a major source of high-paying U.S. jobs. But do minorities have an equal chance at these opportunities? We looked at the numbers that tell part of the story. Related GAO Work: GAO-18-69: Diversity in the Technology Sector: Federal Agencies Could Improve Oversight of Equal Employment Opportunity Requirements Released: November 2017 [ Background Music ] [ Cindy Brown Barnes: ] We found that women received far fewer tech-related degrees than other degrees. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm Jacques Arsenault. In recent months, several news stories have highlighted a lack of diversity in the tech industry. Some have questioned whether tech companies really are committed to equal employment opportunity. I sat down with Cindy Brown Barnes, a director in our Education, Workforce, and Income Security team, to talk about GAO's new report on diversity in the technology sector and federal agencies' efforts to monitor companies for compliance. I asked Cindy to tell me about the minority employment trends that this report uncovered. [ Cindy Brown Barnes: ] One of the key challenges is, how do you define this sector? People define it many different ways, and the way that we defined it is workers who are in occupations such as engineering, computers, and mathematics. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] And so when we looked at representation of minorities and women right now, what does that picture look like for the sector? [ Cindy Brown Barnes: ] The picture looks like this. Black and Hispanic men and women were not as represented in the tech sector compared to the general workforce. They had a lower representation. Or in the case of females and blacks, it was flat. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] From what you look at, what do we know about why these groups are so underrepresented in the field? [ Cindy Brown Barnes: ] Well, one thing that we looked at in our work -- and there are a number of factors in play here -- but one key thing is the pipeline. So this is the preparation of those that have the skills, the training, the other background, the degrees, the academic preparation to go into these type of fields. Those that have earned technology degrees in tech-related type fields, this is an important pathway to these careers. As far as women, we found that women received far fewer tech-related degrees than other degrees. For example, in 2014, women earned 58 percent of all degrees but only 24 percent of tech-related degrees. And aside from the pipeline issue, there may be other factors as well, such as recruitment practices, that favor a small number of universities and colleges that's limiting the pool of applicants. We also heard from some of the reviews and other studies that we looked at that the internal culture can also be another factor. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] So then, can you talk to me about the federal role here? What are the federal agencies that play a role in looking at these employment trends, and what do they do? [ Cindy Brown Barnes: ] There are two federal agencies that primarily operate in this space, and that's the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and they look at individual complaints that workers filed against companies, and then there's the Department of Labor Office of Federal Contract and Compliance, and they oversee federal contractors in this space and work with the contractors to remedy any problems or situations that arise. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] So there's no kind of overall federal agency that looks at the sector as a whole, but EEOC does it through individual complaints and labor does it as it relates to federal money going to those-- [ Cindy Brown Barnes: ] Those federal contractors, that's correct. [ Background Music ] [ Jacques Arsenault: ] Giving the continuing underrepresentation of minorities in tech companies, I asked Cindy to tell me about her team's recommendations for the agencies that gather employment data and monitor companies for compliance. [ Cindy Brown Barnes: ] We made six recommendations in all. We made one to EEOC and the other five to the Department of Labor. As far as EEOC, EEOC has not been consistently capturing industry information, industry codes. They do it for roughly maybe half of their investigations now, but it would be helpful if they have it, then they could identify more readily different sectors, such as the tech sector, and do more broad-based analysis. As far as Labor, there were five recommendations to Labor, and one key one I wanted to point out is that we recommended they move towards requiring contractors to develop placement codes for specific minority groups when they discover underrepresentation of a certain group. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] And finally then, what would you say is the key takeaway from this report? [ Cindy Brown Barnes: ] A key takeaway is that the tech sector and the relatively high-paying jobs that this sector offers is continuing to grow, and everyone should be a part of that. But what we found was that female, Black, and Hispanic workers are not making the gains that the rest of the population is within this sector, and so they're not reaping those benefits. And the two federal agencies responsible for overseeing requirements and enforcing nondiscrimination could improve their processes to help any discrimination that might be taking place in this sector. [ Background Music ] [ Jacques Arsenault: ] Thanks for listening to the Watchdog Report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts. [ Background Music ] [ Jacques Arsenault: ] For more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visit us at GAO.gov.