Connecting the world takes people with different backgrounds and points of view to build products that work better for everyone. This means building a workforce that reflects the diversity of the people we serve. Since 2014, we’ve publicly reported Facebook’s diversity metrics and shared our plans to better support communities of color, women, members of the LGBTQ+ community and others. This year, we made progress, identified areas for improvement and expanded our investments to support diverse communities through education, employment and increasing economic opportunities. Here’s a summary:
Increasing Representation Among Facebook Employees
We challenge ourselves to pursue ambitious goals across everything we do at Facebook. Over the past two years, we set three goals to increase representation in our workforce over five years.
- Double the number of women employees globally and double the number of Black and Hispanic employees in the US.
- Increase the number of people from underrepresented groups. By 2024, our goal is to have at least 50% of our workforce comprised of women globally, and underrepresented minorities, people with two or more ethnicities, people with disabilities and veterans in the US.
- Increase the number of US-based leaders (Director-level employees and above) who are people of color by 30%.
For these goals, we expect to see some fluctuation year to year based on company growth and volume in particular roles. We’ll keep working toward these goals regardless of whether we’re able to meet them within five years because progress in representation is critical to serve a global audience.
On the third goal, we’re proud that in just one year we achieved a 38.2% increase in Black leaders due to strong recruiting and increased focus on retaining top talent across the company. As the company grows, we’ll work to maintain this representation of Black employees in leadership. We will also continue striving for an overall 30% increase in representation of people of color in the US, including Asian and Hispanic people, in leadership roles.
Over the last year, we’ve seen growth in underrepresented communities at Facebook. Today, more than 21% of our non-technical employees identify as Black or Hispanic. We’re also proud to report that we had our most diverse intern class ever in 2021, with 44.0% women globally and 20.4% from underrepresented minority communities in the US (Black and Latinx). This year, 4.7% of our US-based employees identify as people with disabilities, and 2.4% identify as veterans. Our LGBTQ+ community makes up 10.6% of our US-based workforce.
We regularly conduct pay equity analyses, and our latest analysis confirms that we continue to have pay equity across genders globally and by race in the US for people in similar jobs (accounting for factors such as location, role and level).
Building Equitable, Accessible Products
We want our products to be inclusive, accessible and bring equal value to all people. Last September, we introduced Facebook Reality Labs’ Responsible Innovation Principles to guide the development of more inclusive AR and VR products. These principles have informed features like the new Accessibility tab in Oculus Settings. This includes a Color Correction feature, which helps people who are color blind more easily distinguish colors when using Oculus and provides a more comfortable VR experience.
We also created Inclusive Product Councils that offer diverse perspectives and feedback to product teams across the company based on lived experiences. Input from an Inclusive Product Council reduces the risk of harm and helps our teams consider how a product may impact a diverse range of communities and people. Participation in an Inclusive Product Council is encouraged and recognized in our performance evaluation process.
Over the last year, we introduced tools for businesses to self-identify as Black-owned on Facebook and Instagram to make it easier for people to find and support them. We also made it easier for people to discover and support Asian and Pacific Islander-owned businesses through Facebook and Instagram Shop collections and Shops You May Like. And as access to COVID-19 vaccines became a global issue, we used our apps to fundraise for global vaccine equity, promote reliable information to communities most affected by COVID-19, and share insights and tools for equitable vaccine distribution. We also supported vaccine clinics at our headquarters and across the country.
Improving Access to Educational Opportunities
Last June, we set a three-year goal to reach 1 million members of the Black community and 1 million members of the Hispanic and Latinx communities in the US through a program called Facebook Elevate that provides free training in digital skills. We reached our goal thanks to a diverse internal team that worked quickly to engage members of these communities. We are also on track to reach our goal of giving 100,000 scholarships to Black students working toward digital skills certifications through our Facebook Blueprint program.
We’ve continued to invest in education programs designed to increase access to STEM and computer science training for women, Black and Latinx people. This year, we’re expanding our co-teaching AI program that started as a pilot in 2020 with Georgia Tech. Together with the university, we built a deep-learning curriculum that professors at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic-Serving Institutions will adopt. Our goal is to enable more students from underrepresented minority communities to be trained in artificial intelligence.
We also recently announced a new Summer News Fellowship for undergraduate students and recent graduates of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. This program will elevate emerging Black talent and future media professionals by pairing them with established national and local news organizations across the US.
These are in addition to existing partnerships and programs we have with CodePath.org, Align, TechPrep and other organizations dedicated to leveling the playing field. These programs help underrepresented minority students who face disproportionate challenges gain equitable access and opportunity to pursue degrees, and eventually careers, in computer science.
Supporting Diverse Suppliers, Businesses, Nonprofits and Creators
Last year, we committed to spending $1 billion with diverse suppliers in 2021, including $100 million with Black-owned businesses. We pledged another $100 million in grants and ad credits to Black-owned SMBs, creators and nonprofits in the US. Not only are we on track to meet these goals, but we donated another $10 million to 36 US nonprofits, nominated by Facebook employees, that are working to address barriers to racial equity. In May, we expanded this program with an additional $5 million investment that will go to organizations focused on racial justice and equity for the Asian and Pacific Islander community and other marginalized communities. And last December, we allocated $10 million to our Black Gaming Creator Program to equip the next generation of Black gaming creators with funding and resources.
In response to the devastating impacts of the pandemic — particularly on minority and women-owned businesses — we also developed the Facebook Receivables Financing Program for our diverse-owned suppliers. Through this program, Facebook offers to buy non-Facebook invoices from small, medium and diverse-owned businesses. Having access to this affordable and immediate working capital has served as a lifeline, allowing many businesses to stay afloat during the pandemic this past year.
And to support Black-owned businesses hit especially hard by the pandemic, a team of Black employees created #BuyBlackFriday, one of our most impactful efforts to support Black-owned businesses during the holiday shopping season.
We’re proud of the progress we’ve made and will keep working to improve representation in our workforce and continue building products that reflect the diversity of the people that use them.