A Google spokeswoman told the Washington Examiner that the company no longer has specific hiring goals for representing certain groups.
“We’re committed to creating a workplace where all our employees can succeed and have equal opportunities, and over the last year we’ve been reviewing our programs designed to help us get there,” they said in an email. “We’ve updated our 10-k language to reflect this, and as a federal contractor, our teams are also evaluating changes required following recent court decisions and executive orders on this topic.”
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In an email reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Google also shared with employees that it would be conducting a review of the companies’ DEI-related grants and training initiatives, particularly those that “raise risk, or that aren’t as impactful as we’d hoped.”
Google created a target to increase the proportion of “leadership representation of underrepresented groups” by 30% in 2020 following the civil unrest that unfolded from the murder of George Floyd, giving themselves five years to do so.
In 2020, 3.7% of Google’s employees were black and 5.9% were Latino. Four years later, upon the implementation of its DEI hiring targets, the company’s percentage of black employees jumped to 5.7% and its share of Latino employees to 7.5%.
In Google’s parent company Alphabet’s annual report released on Wednesday, the company omitted a statement that 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.” The sentence appeared in its reports from 2021 through 2024.
Google said in its email to employees that it would continue to provide resources for its minority employees.
“Google has always been committed to creating a workplace where we hire the best people wherever we operate, create an environment where everyone can thrive, and treat everyone fairly,” the email said. “That’s exactly what you can expect to see going forward.”
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Google stressed that its recent changes are not unusual. Other major companies such as Amazon, Disney, and Meta have reevaluated their DEI directives in response to the Trump administration’s orders.
However, not all major companies are changing their DEI plans, with Apple advising its shareholders to reject a proposal to end its DEI targets and programs.
