Google Attempts to Address Gender ‘Wage Gap’ – Discovers Many Men Are Severely Underpaid

Recently, Google conducted a study to determine if women and minorities were being paid less than their male counterparts — instead, the Silicon Valley giant discovered that many male employees were being underpaid.

The New York Times reports that the Silicon Valley Masters of the Universe at Google recently conducted a study to determine if female and minority employees at the company are being paid less than male employees. Instead, the study revealed that more men than women were receiving less pay for equal work.

Following the study, Google paid out an extra $9.7 million in additional compensation to 10,677 of its employees for the year. Although men account for 69 percent of Google’s workforce, they received a much higher percentage of this money in order to bring them up to equal footing, but the exact number of men that received raises was not made clear.

Despite these findings, Google is still under investigation by the Labor Department over claims that the company regularly underpays women. Google is also facing a class action lawsuit in which 8,300 current and former female employees allege that they received less money than their male counterparts.

Lauren Barbato, Google’s lead analyst for pay equity, people analytics, stated in a blog post: “We know that’s only part of the story. Because leveling, performance ratings, and promotion impact pay, this year, we are undertaking a comprehensive review of these processes to make sure the outcomes are fair and equitable for all employees.”

The CEO of diversity consultation company Paradigm, Joelle Emerson, commented on the pay gap correction stating that it only served “to benefit a group that is dramatically overrepresented in engineering, and that faces fewer barriers to access and opportunity in the field.” Emerson added that Google was advancing a “flawed and incomplete sense of equality” by make sure that men and women received the same salary for the same work. Emerson alleges that this is not addressing “equity” and that women and minorities face more hurdles entering the world of Silicon Valley than male engineers.

Lauren Barbato said at an internal Google meeting to discuss the findings of the study that more men being underpaid than women was a “surprising trend that we didn’t expect.” Read the full report in the New York Times here.