Google Denies Gender Wage Gap as Lawsuits Loom

Tech giant Google has denied that they pay their female workers less than their male employees as lawsuits against the company continue to grow in number.

The Silicon Valley Business Journal reports that amidst a growing number of lawsuits, Silicon Valley tech giant Google has denied a gender wage gap at the company. The company studied approximately 89 percent of its workforce — which amounts to around 63,000 employees worldwide — and when they adjusted the study for seniority, location, job title, and employee level, it found “zero statistically significant pay differences,” according to a blog post published by the company.

The analysis, which took place late last year, discovered that 228 Google employees were being paid less than employees in similar roles. To combat this, Google paid out $270,000 to adjust the salary of those employees. 11 percent of Google’s workforce was not included in the analysis as the company claims they either work on teams too small to gather rigorous statistical data, or they were in senior positions at the company where salaries are vastly different to average workers. Activist investor Arjuna Capital has pressured 10 tech companies, including Google, to be more transparent in their publishing of gender pay disparities at the company.

“[We] are concerned that 11 percent of Google employees are left out of the analysis published today,” Arjuna Capital Managing Partner Natasha Lamb said in a statement. “We think there is room for improvement and can’t give a rubber stamp to an incomplete analysis.” The company has faced a number of lawsuits alleging a significant pay disparity between male and female employees, Google has consistently denied these allegations, with a spokesperson stating:

We disagree with the central allegations of this amended lawsuit. We work really hard to create a great workplace for everyone, and to give everyone the chance to thrive here… Job levels and promotions are determined through rigorous hiring and promotion committees, and must pass multiple levels of review, including checks to make sure there is no bias in these decisions.

Google employees share salary data each year anonymously, which includes their gender, location and job title. The New York Times obtained a copy of the spreadsheet last year and discovered that across the board men were paid more than women at the company. Google claimed this disparity was due to differences in job titles, individual performance, and job location, and it should also be noted that 80 percent of Google’s engineers are male.

Before I left, about 5% of former co. had shared their salary on that sheet. People asked for & got equitable pay based on data in the sheet

— EricaJoy (@EricaJoy) July 17, 2015

It was also claimed last year by the U.S. Labor Department that they were in possession of evidence of “systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce [at Google].”